Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On the evening of June 29, Beijing time, several people familiar with the matter said today that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will file a far-reaching antitrust lawsuit in the coming weeks, focusing on Amazon's core online marketplace (online marketplace) business.

At that time, FTC will accuse Amazon of using its market dominance to favor online merchants who use its logistics services and punish those who do not use its logistics services.

Over the past few months, FTC investigators have been preparing the lawsuit and finalizing key details, including where to file the lawsuit, two of the people familiar with the matter said. As for the prosecution date, FTC chairman Lina Khan and colleagues plan to file a lawsuit before the personnel change in August, and the final date may also be delayed.

Based on Lena's previous public comments, she is unlikely to accept Amazon's compromise and hopes to seek to restructure Amazon. This is clearly unacceptable for Amazon, which is expected to seek an appeal.

Lena, 34, is preparing to sue Amazon, which could be a defining moment in her career. Lena has previously published an article saying that the existing antitrust enforcement framework is not enough to address the potential harm caused by Amazon to competition.

After Lena was appointed president of FTC, she stepped up the Biden administration's crackdown on big technology companies, including prosecutions against Google and Meta and an investigation into Apple. FTC has already filed three lawsuits against Amazon.

Amazon said that because Lena made a public statement to the company, she should evade the lawsuit. But Lena has been authorized to act as a prosecutor in the Amazon case, according to a document. Meta has made a similar request before, but it was also rejected.

Amazon's vast online market is at the heart of its e-commerce business, and third-party merchants now account for more than half of Amazon's online sales, paying commissions for each transaction and paying Amazon for everything from warehousing to transportation to advertising.

Of course, these fees are optional. But most merchants believe that these are the necessary costs of doing business on Amazon. Amazon's cut on every transaction in its online market has been growing in recent years, with more than 50% in 2022, up from 35% in 2016.

People familiar with the matter said FTC had gathered evidence that Amazon used the "Buy Box" quotation ranking to favor online merchants using its logistics services and punish those who did not use its logistics services. Buy Box allows consumers to add items from specific retailers directly to their shopping carts, and getting Buy Box means more sales.

The EU has previously conducted an antitrust investigation into Amazon Buy Box, but the two sides reached a settlement in December last year.

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