European Commission Claims Amazon Breached Antitrust Rules
Posted on 11/11/2020
The European Commission said Amazon.com, Inc. breached European antitrust rules by using independent sellers’ data for its own benefit. The European Commission announced a second formal investigation into the company’s e-commerce processes. The European Commissions has confirmed that its Statement of Objections, published Tuesday, does not constitute legal charges against Amazon.
“Data on the activity of third-party sellers should not be used to the benefit of Amazon when it acts as a competitor to these sellers,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, said in the statement.
The EC found that very large quantities of non-public seller data are available to Amazon and flow directly into Amazon’s automated systems.
The European Commission started its official probe in Amazon in July 2019 over anti-competitive behavior concerns.
U.S. Taxes
For 2019, Amazon paid US$ 162 million of federal income taxes, slightly more than 1% of the company’s U.S. profits. In 2018, Amazon paid $0 in U.S. federal income tax on more than US$ 11 billion in profit before taxes. Amazon also received a US$ 129 million tax rebate from the federal government.