The FTC’s Beef With Amazon and Its Unfair Competitive Practices

COUNT III: UNFAIR METHOD OF COMPETITION (15 U.S.C. § 45(a))

454. Plaintiff FTC re-alleges and incorporates by reference the allegations in paragraphs 1-453 above.

455. Amazon’s course of conduct—including Amazon’s anti-discounting practices, which stifle price competition and tend to create an artificial price floor, and Amazon’s practice of coercing sellers who want their products to be Prime eligible into using Fulfillment by Amazon, which makes it more difficult and more expensive for rivals to offer increased product selection—is anticompetitive and exclusionary, and constitutes an unfair method of competition in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(a).

456. There is no valid and cognizable justification for Amazon’s anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct.