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The European Union has launched a formal investigation into Amazon, opening a new front against US tech giants.
Announcing the decision, the European commissioner for competition, Margrethe Vestager, said she wanted to take “a very close look” at whether Amazon’s business practices broke EU antitrust rules.
The investigation into another US company seems bound to provoke the ire of the White House, only weeks after Donald Trump said Vestager “hates the United States perhaps worse than any other person I’ve ever met”.
The Danish commissioner, due to leave her role in the autumn, has won international recognition for her tough action on US tech companies such as Google and Apple when Brussels investigations found either an abuse of market power or underpayment of corporate taxes. The commission has always insisted its actions are targeting anti-competitive behaviour rather than singling out companies by nationality.
The latest investigation will assess the agreements between Amazon and the thousands of independent retailers that sell goods on its site. After a preliminary investigation launched last year, the commission said Amazon appeared to use “competitively sensitive information” from those independent retailers.
The formal investigation, launched on Wednesday, will study how the use of this data affects competition, with a focus on Amazon’s “buy box”, which allows customers to add items from a specific retailer directly into their shopping carts.
“E-commerce has boosted retail competition and brought more choice and better prices,” Vestager said. “We need to ensure that large online platforms don’t eliminate these benefits through anti-competitive behaviour.
“I have therefore decided to take a very close look at Amazon’s business practices and its dual role as marketplace and retailer, to assess its compliance with EU competition rules.”
The commission said the announcement of the investigation did not prejudge the outcome.
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