FTC Accuses Amazon of Unfair Monopoly Tactics in the Superstore Market

COUNT V: MONOPOLY MAINTENANCE OF THE ONLINE SUPERSTORE MARKET (15 U.S.C. § 2)

464. State Plaintiffs re-allege and incorporate by reference the allegations in paragraphs 1-463 above.

465. At all relevant times, Amazon has had monopoly power in the online superstore market in the United States.

466. Amazon has willfully maintained its monopoly power through its course of anticompetitive and exclusionary 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.

467. Although each of these acts is anticompetitive in its own right, these interrelated and independent actions have had a cumulative and synergistic effect that has harmed competition and the competitive process.

468. Amazon’s conduct has harmed and continues to harm competition, and Plaintiff States have therefore suffered and continue to suffer harm to their general economies and to their residents.

469. There is no valid procompetitive justification for Amazon’s anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct in the online superstore market.

470. Amazon’s anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct constitutes unlawful monopoly maintenance, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2.