Amazon said it would appeal a €1.1bn fine from Italy after antitrust investigators found the online shopping giant had given unfair preference to sellers who also ship their goods through Amazon’s logistics service.
Amazon had previously tried to halt the case in Italy on the grounds that it is facing a parallel investigation in Brussels covering the same ground. Its attempt was dismissed in November by the European General Court in Luxembourg.
On Thursday, Italy’s competition regulator said Amazon had been more lenient in applying performance criteria, which can lead in extreme cases to merchants being suspended, if sellers were also paying for Amazon to ship their parcels.
Because of the advantage of signing up with Amazon for delivery, the Italian regulator said Amazon had damaged “ecommerce logistics competitors” that could not offer the same benefits as Amazon’s own logistics service.
Amazon has to offer equal treatment in terms of offers made by sellers that use their own carriers and sellers that use the Amazon carrier services, the watchdog said.
When announcing its probe, Brussels said that it would allow the Italian authority to carry out its own investigation over concerns that Amazon might be “artificially” favouring “its own retail offers and offers of marketplace sellers that use Amazon’s logistics and delivery services”.
Amazon said it disagreed with the decision and that it would challenge it.
“The proposed fine and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate. More than half of all annual sales on Amazon in Italy come from [small and medium businesses], and their success is at the heart of our business model,” it said in a statement, adding that Amazon faces competition in Italy and that its services are “just one” of multiple options.
Italy’s move against Amazon comes as national competition authorities have in recent months rushed to impose multimillion fines on other online tech giants.
In May, the German competition authority opened an investigation against Amazon to determine whether it has to comply with new rules in the country aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech.
Since June this year the French competition watchdog has hit Google with €720m in fines in two separate cases. The French authority has also fined Apple €1.1bn for anti-competitive behaviour.
The UK and the EU are jointly investigating how Facebook uses customer data to allegedly advance its position and undermine rivals. Brussels has antitrust probes opened on all large US platforms — Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.
The Italian political debate over the regulation of platforms’ operations has been charged with tension over the past few years as their market share grew across the country, increasing their profits, and workers demanded more rights and higher salaries.
Andrea Orlando, Italy’s labour minister, on Thursday praised the European Commission’s draft directive to regulate platforms’ employment practices. “This is an important step forward and a priority for the Italian government.”
On Black Friday, at the end of November, a group of logistics workers protested outside Amazon’s largest logistics hub near Piacenza, in Italy.
A labour union representative said the pandemic and the mass consumption model had worsened labour conditions for platforms’ logistics contractors and drivers.
