Margaret Westage, Executive Vice President and Commissioner for Competition and Antitrust Affairs of the European Commission, recently stated that the first phase of the EU’s investigation into US e-commerce giant Amazon’s alleged unfair competition has ended, and that Amazon has preliminarily determined that Amazon has violated EU anti-trust Monopoly rules undermine the fair competition environment. The analysis believes that the EU may make a final ruling next year, and Amazon may be fined 10% of its global turnover. According to CNN estimates, fines can be as high as 37 billion U.S. dollars.
Vestagg said in a statement that the investigators found that the product and transaction data of third-party sellers can be detailed and real-time after sampling and analyzing 80 million transaction records and 100 million products on the Amazon platform in the European market. Feedback into Amazon’s retail business algorithm. It is based on these algorithms that Amazon can optimize its products, prices, inventory and supply chain management. The European Union believes that Amazon has played the dual roles of “contestants” and “referees”, causing third-party sellers to be at a disadvantage. The data shows that in certain categories on the Amazon platform, Amazon’s self-operated products only account for about 10% of the total in this category, but they have achieved more than 50% of sales.
In July last year, the European Commission launched an investigation into Amazon. The investigators determined that Amazon has established a series of rules to provide preferential treatment to its own retailers and sellers who use its services, thereby making third-party sellers overly dependent on the platform and unable to freely choose trading platforms. The European Union stated that it will soon launch the second phase of the investigation of Amazon.
According to statistics, in the past five years, European e-commerce sales have almost doubled, with sales reaching 720 billion Euros from January to November 2020. Amazon plays an important role in the field of European e-commerce. More than 70% of French consumers and 80% of German consumers have made purchases on the Amazon platform in the past year. In the second quarter of this year, Amazon’s online sales increased by 48% year-on-year, with the most significant increase in Europe. Monique Gones, Director General of the European Consumer Union, believes that people are increasingly relying on e-commerce platforms during the epidemic prevention and control period. “If companies such as Amazon abuse their market position to suppress third-party sellers on their platforms and deprive consumers The right to choose is very harmful to consumers.”
The European Union has previously imposed billions of dollars in fines on American technology companies such as Google. The European Commission plans to announce a series of new competition policy regulations in December to better supervise large companies that dominate their respective fields. European media believe that Amazon may eventually seek a settlement to avoid being convicted of violations and paying high fines.
