Italian Antitrust Watchdog Fines Amazon IDR 18.3 Trillion For Abuse Of Market Domination

JAKARTA - Italy's antitrust watchdog said on Thursday, December 98 that it had fined Amazon 1.13 billion euros (IDR 18.3 trillion) for alleged abuse of market dominance, in one of the largest penalties imposed on the US tech giant in Europe.

Amazon said it "strongly disagrees" with the Italian regulator's decision and will appeal the decision as quoted by Reuters.

Global regulatory scrutiny of the tech giant has increased following a series of privacy and misinformation scandals, as well as complaints from some businesses that they are abusing their market power.

In addition to Amazon, Alphabet's Google, Facebook Inc (Meta Platform Inc), Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp have attracted intense scrutiny in Europe.

The Italian watchdog said in a statement that Amazon had leveraged its dominant position in the Italian market for intermediary services in the market to support the adoption of its own logistics service - Fulfillment by Amazon - by sellers active on Amazon.it.

Authorities say Amazon is tied to using FBA's access to a range of exclusive benefits, including the Prime label, which helps increase visibility and increase sales on Amazon.it.

"Amazon prevents third-party sellers from associating the Prime label with offerings that are not managed by the FBA," he said.

The Prime label makes it easy to sell to more than 7 million of Amazon's most loyal and cost-effective members of Amazon's loyalty program consumers.

The antitrust authority also said it would put in place corrective measures which inspectors will review.

Amazon says FBA "is a completely optional service" and the majority of third-party sellers at Amazon don't use it.

"When sellers choose FBA, they do so because it is efficient, convenient and competitively priced," the US technology group said in a statement.

"The proposed fines and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate," he added.

The EU Commission said it was working closely with Italian competition authorities on the case, within the framework of the European Competition Network, to ensure consistency with its own two ongoing investigations into Amazon's business practices.

The first opened in July 2019 to assess whether Amazon's use of sensitive data from independent retailers selling on its marketplace violates EU competition rules.

The second, in late 2020, focuses on possible preferential treatment of Amazon's own retail offerings and marketplace sellers who use Amazon's shipping and logistics services.

"This investigation complements today's decision of the Italian competition authority on Amazon's behavior in the Italian logistics market," the Commission said on Thursday, December 9.