The Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) in a press release on Thursday said that it had “initiated an abuse proceeding” against the online giant’s treatment of third-party sellers on it’s website Amazon.de.
This investigation is being conducted by the German antitrust authority, in order to see if Amazon was involved in or was preventing fair competition in the country’s online marketplace, after it had received “many complaints” over Amazon’s conduct.
Bundeskartellamt President Andreas Mundt in the press conference said that "because of the many complaints we have received, we will examine whether Amazon is abusing its market position to the detriment of sellers active on its marketplace." He further added that the office would be closely monitoring Amazon to see if it’s dominance is hampering other online retailers and whether sellers have become too much dependent on Amazon for their sales.
With an investigation already running on Amazon regarding the use of data gathered from online sellers by the European Union’s Competition Commission, this comes as an additional watch on the activities of the company.
Additionally the commissioner of European Union’s Competition Commission, Margrethe Vestager, is also planning to investigate Amazon over the concerns that Amazon might be lapping up product data from other successful rival sellers and then bringing cheaper copycat products to market.