Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine amended his antitrust complaint against Amazon to include the company’s relationships with wholesale suppliers.
The lawsuit alleges that the tech giant’s practices with sellers raise prices for consumers: “Far from enabling consumers to obtain the best products at the lowest prices, Amazon instead causes prices across the entire online retail sales market to be artificially inflated, both for products sold on Amazon’s online retail sales platform and on its competitors’ online retail sales platforms,” the original complaint read.
Racine said the lawsuit is all about holding Amazon accountable.
“I filed this antitrust lawsuit to stand up for consumers, hold Amazon accountable for its anti-competitive practices, and protect competition,” Racine said. “We’re continuing to do just that with this amended complaint that adds more of Amazon’s misconduct.”
When asked about the amended complaint by CNBC, Amazon directed CNBC to the company’s previous statement on Racine’s initial lawsuit.
“The DC Attorney General has it exactly backwards -- sellers set their own prices for the products they offer in our store,” the Amazon statement said. “Amazon takes pride in the fact that we offer low prices across the broadest selection, and like any store we reserve the right not to highlight offers to customers that are not priced competitively. The relief the AG seeks would force Amazon to feature higher prices to customers, oddly going against core objectives of antitrust law.”
Several Big Tech companies are currently facing an antitrust lawsuit. Forty-five states and territories have filed antitrust complaints against Google in two different lawsuits. Meanwhile, 48 states and territories have filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. “These companies are extremely powerful, extremely wealthy,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a call with the Media Research Center. “Unless we start addressing this very soon, we may lose our opportunity to address some of the wrongs.”
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