Amazon was fined €1.13 billion by Italian antitrust regulators for abusing its market dominance.
The AUTORITA GARANTE DELLA CONCORRENZA E DEL MERCATO, or ACGM, said that company had harmed competing logistics service.
It concluded that American giant leveraged its dominant position to encourage sellers on Amazon. It is to use its own logistics service fulfillment by Amazon.
This was done to the dominant of the logistics services offered by competing operators, as well as to strengthen its own dominant position.
AGCM said it will impose corrective steps that will be subject to review by a monitoring trustee.
Amazon said it strongly disagrees with the fine and that it plans to appeal. The proposed fine and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate.
The company said over 50% of all annual sales on its platform in Italy come from small and medium sized business, adding that their success is key to Amazon business version.
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Small and medium sized businesses have multiple channels to sell their products both online and offline. Amazon is just one of those options the Amazon spokesperson said.
We constantly invest to support the growth of the 18,000 Italian SMBs that sell on Amazon, and we provide multiple tools to our sellers, including those who manage shipments themselves.
Ruhall Amin, global head of retail equity research at William O’NEIL + CO, told CNBC streets signs Europe.
It is part of a broader trend that we’ve seen in Europe around trying to regulate some of these big tech agencies.
The concern for investors is that the Italian fine could signify a broader trend toward regulating the company more heavily in other parts of its business as well, and in other parts of the world.
This case is interesting because the European commission opened its own probe into this practice, but carved Italy out of the scope of the investigation to allow Italy antitrust watchdog to proceed on its own merit.
