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FRANKFURT, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Germany’s cartel office has prohibited Amazon from imposing price caps on \u200bonline retailers in its German marketplace and for \u200cthe first time claimed several million euros that it said \u200cthe U.S. firm obtained through anti-competitive behavior.<\/p>\n
“Amazon competes directly with other marketplace retailers on its platform,” said cartel office president Andreas Mundt.<\/p>\n
“Therefore, influencing competitors’ pricing, even in \u2060the form of \u200cprice caps, is only permissible in absolutely exceptional cases, such as price gouging,” he \u200dadded.<\/p>\n
Since Amazon has so far stuck to its price practice, the office is using a new power it gained \u200bthrough 2023 reforms to initially demand 59 million \u200ceuros ($69.54 million) from the Big Tech company. The company has one month to appeal the decision.<\/p>\n
Rocco Braeuniger, the country manager for Amazon’s German site, said the company would appeal “this unprecedented regulatory decision” and continue to \u2060operate as usual.<\/p>\n
If Amazon is \u200bnow solely obligated to “promote uncompetitive \u200bor even abusive prices in the store, this will lead to a poor shopping experience,” \u200dhe added.<\/p>\n
In \u2060a similar case, the German watchdog in October started investigating whether China’s Temu is influencing the \u2060pricing of third-party merchants on its e-commerce platform.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8484 euros)<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200cby Hakan Ersen and Matthias InverardiWriting by Miranda \u200cMurrayEditing by Ludwig Burger)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n