European
Commission accepts commitments from Amazon to end marketplace and Buy Box
probes
The
European Commission has decided under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003, to accept
commitments offered by Amazon, to address competition concerns in two
investigations.
The
first concerns the Amazon Marketplace where the Commission had provisionally
concluded that Amazon's use of sensitive data from independent retailers violates
Article 102 of the TFEU.
The
second concerns Amazon Buy Box and Prime where the Commission had provisionally
found that the arrangements for the Buy Box and Prime unduly favour Amazon's
own retail and connected businesses.
Following
consultation on proposed commitments in July 2022 the Commission has now
decided to accept revised commitments.
Among
the commitments Amazon has agreed that it will: 1) refrain from using
non-public data relating to, or derived from, the activities of independent
sellers on its marketplace, for its competing retail business; 2) apply
non-discriminatory conditions and selection criteria for offers to appear in
the Buy Box; 3) set non-discriminatory conditions and criteria for the
qualification of marketplace sellers and offers to Prime; 4) refrain from using
any information obtained through Prime about the terms and performance of
third-party carriers, for its own logistics services.
Amazon
must implement the commitments by June 2023. Some are heralding the commitments
as a win for Amazon as the Commission rarely reverts to a commitments procedure
after the issue of a statement of objections.
Meanwhile,
the UK Competition and Markets Authority also launched a parallel abuse of
dominance investigation into Amazon’s use of merchant data and the criteria for
sellers to appear in its Buy Box.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_7777
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