Italy’s competition authority announced Thursday it was slapping a €1.13 billion fine on Amazon for abusing its dominant position in the market and harming competitors in the e-commerce logistics service.
Italy’s Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) said it has also imposed behavioral measures that will be monitored by a monitoring trustee.
Amazon’s conduct was “particularly serious,” the authority said in its statement.
The watchdog launched a probe in 2019 over concerns that Amazon was giving sellers using its logistics service, called “Fulfillment by Amazon,” a better chance to appear as Amazon’s pick for users searching a product featured in a separate section of its website, the “buy box.”
Last year, the European Commission also opened a probe into the same practices but carved Italy out of its scope of investigation, to allow the country’s antitrust watchdog to proceed. In January this year, Amazon challenged that carve-out.
At the end of November, the Italian authority had already fined Amazon and Apple for colluding over the sale of Apple products.
Amazon didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J December 09, 2021 at 01:46PM
Pietro Lombardi, Giorgio Leali