A class action lawsuit has been filed by independent British retailers against Amazon, seeking £1 billion in damages. They claim that Amazon is pushing them out of the online market.
Around 35,000 merchants are part of the lawsuit, led by the British Independent Retailers Association (Bira). They allege that from October 2015 to the present, Amazon used non-public data from retailers to launch its own competing products.
The lawsuit also highlights how Amazon’s “Buy Box” aims to direct shoppers away from independent retailers to its own products, further hurting the market competition.
Bira claims that Amazon already charges a non-negotiable 30% commission on every item sold on the site and has unfairly injected cheaper products into the market, driving many independent UK retailers out of business.
The group plans to submit over 1,150 pages of documents outlining their case against Amazon to the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London.
Amazon has not yet commented on the lawsuit, but has stated in the past that they support over 100,000 small businesses in the UK and that their success is tied to the success of the businesses they work with.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority began investigating Amazon in 2022 for potentially giving its own brands and affiliated brands an unfair advantage over third-party sellers, following reports of data misuse.
The investigation concluded with Amazon agreeing to give independent sellers a fair opportunity to be featured in the site’s “buy box” and to refrain from using marketplace data from third-party sellers to gain an unfair competitive edge.
Amazon also made a similar commitment in December 2022, subject to an EU investigation.
Source: www.theguardian.com
