Italy's antitrust and competition authority AGCM said it has fined Amazon a total of EUR 1.13 billion for alleged abuse of market dominance in e-commerce logistics services. Specifically, the regulator said Amazon had harmed competing operators by favouring the adoption of its own logistics service – Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) – among sellers active on Amazon.it to the detriment of logistics services offered by competing operators, and to strengthen its own dominant position.
AGCM added that Amazon had prevented third-party sellers from associating the Prime brand with offers not covered by FBA, affecting their sales and visibility. The watchdog said it would also impose corrective measures on Amazon that will be subject to review by a monitoring trustee. In that regard it ordered Amazon to grant all sales and visibility privileges on its platform to all third-party sellers who respect fair and non-discriminatory standards for fulfilling their orders, in line with the level of service that Amazon guarantees to Prime consumers.
The penalty comes just over a fortnight after the watchdog fined the e-commerce giant EUR 68.7 million for alleged anti-competitive cooperation in the sale of Apple products. Amazon said it would appeal the fine, one of the largest received by a US tech company in Europe, describing it as "unjustified and disproportionate" and adding that its FBA service is "completely optional".
