Amazon in EU Crosshairs Over Suspected Price Curbs on Sellers

Amazon.com Inc. is under scrutiny from the European Union for potentially imposing unfair restrictions on firms selling on its platform.

As part of the process, the European Commission has quizzed third-party sellers on whether they have been hampered by so-called price-parity restrictions, which allegedly penalize them for offering products and services at lower prices on competing marketplaces or their own websites, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

One of those contacted was Jack Nekhala, inventor of the Bed Scrunchie, a device that keeps sheets attached to mattresses. He told Bloomberg that should his company offer its product for less on its own website, Amazon could suppress it on its own marketplace, allowing the US e-commerce giant “to influence prices across the internet.”

The EU’s scrutiny — under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act — is currently in its early stages but it could develop into a full-scale investigation should regulators unearth evidence of potential wrongdoing, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A spokesperson for the Brussels-based EU commission said it’s in “regular dialogue with Amazon and its business customers to monitor compliance with the parity ban requirement” under the DMA.

Amazon is “committed to complying with the DMA and we always engage constructively in the commission’s ongoing regulatory oversight,” according to an emailed statement.

The DMA, which imposes a list of dos and don’ts on Big Tech firms, has already led to a slate of headline-hitting cases since it was set up in 2023. These include multi-million-euro fines for Apple Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. The penalties have irked US President Donald Trump’s White House and added an extra layer of tension to fraught EU-US trade relations.