{"id":212537,"date":"2021-12-09T03:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T03:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/?p=212537"},"modified":"2021-12-19T15:44:01","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T15:44:01","slug":"competition-abuse-of-dominant-position-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/competition-abuse-of-dominant-position-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Competition – Abuse of dominant position"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Italian Competition Authority fined Amazon of over 1 billion euros for abusing its dominant position<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please, find here below the text of the press release published by the Italian Competition Authority (www.agcm.it<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PRESS RELEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Authority found that Amazon harmed its competitors in the market for e-commerce logistics services. The Authority imposed behavioural measures on Amazon that will be subject to review by a monitoring trustee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Authority fined Amazon Europe Core S.\u00e0 r.l., Amazon Services Europe S.\u00e0 r.l., Amazon EU S.\u00e0 r.l., Amazon Italia Services S.r.l. and Amazon Italia Logistica S.r.l. \u20ac 1,128 billion for a breach of Art. 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon holds a dominant position in the Italian market for intermediation services on marketplaces, which Amazon leveraged to favour the adoption of its own logistics service – Fulfilment by Amazon<\/em> (FBA<\/em>) – by sellers active on Amazon.it<\/em> to the detriment of the logistics services offered by competing operators, as well as to strengthen its own dominant position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Authority considered that Amazon tied to the use of FBA<\/em> the access to a set of exclusive benefits essential for gaining visibility and increase sales on Amazon.it<\/em>. Among those benefits, the most relevant is the Prime<\/em> label, which makes it easier to sell to the above 7 million most loyal and high-spending consumers members of Amazon\u2019s loyalty program: Amazon prevents third-party sellers from associating the Prime<\/em> label with offers not managed with FBA<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the Prime<\/em> label allows sellers to participate in the well-known special events promoted by Amazon – such as Black Friday<\/em>, Cyber Monday<\/em>, Prime Day<\/em> – and increases the likelihood of a seller\u2019s offer to be selected as the Featured Offer <\/em>displayed in the Buy Box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigation showed that such benefits are crucial to gain visibility, to boost sales and, in turn, to the success of sellers\u2019 offers on Amazon.it<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, third-party sellers using FBA<\/em> are not subject to the stringent performance indicators that Amazon applies to monitor the non<\/em>–FBA<\/em> sellers\u2019 performance, which can ultimately lead to the suspension of non-compliant sellers\u2019 account on Amazon.it<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In so doing, Amazon harmed competing e-commerce logistics operators, preventing them from presenting themselves to online sellers as providers of services of comparable quality to Amazon\u2019s FBA and thus capable of ensuring high visibility on Amazon.it<\/em>. Such a conduct widened the gap between Amazon\u2019s market power and its competitors\u2019 also in the delivery of e-commerce parcels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of the abuse, competing marketplaces have also been damaged: because of the cost of duplicating warehouses, sellers who adopt Amazon’s logistics are discouraged from offering their products on other online platforms, at least with a product range as wide as that on Amazon.it<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Authority regarded Amazon\u2019s abusive strategy as particularly serious and, considering its seriousness, its duration, the effects already produced and the size of the Group, decided to impose a fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, in order to immediately restore competitive conditions in the relevant markets, the Authority imposed behavioural measures on Amazon that will be subject to review by a monitoring trustee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, Amazon will have to grant sales benefits and visibility on Amazon.it<\/em> to all third-party sellers which are able to comply with fair and non-discriminatory standards for the fulfilment of their orders, in line with the level of service that Amazon intends to guarantee to Prime<\/em> consumers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon shall define and publish such standards and, as of one year from the date of the decision, refrain from negotiating – on behalf of sellers – rates and other contractual terms concerning the logistics of sellers\u2019 orders on Amazon.it<\/em> with carriers and\/or competing logistics operators, outside FBA.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rome, December 9, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Italian Competition Authority fined Amazon of over 1 billion euros for abusing its dominant position. The Authority found that Amazon harmed its competitors in the market for e-commerce logistics services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":212523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1283],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-212537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-en-evidence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212538,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212537\/revisions\/212538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212537"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moretto.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=212537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}