Investigation of Amazon in Germany over the price control during lockdown

Anti-Trust authority of Germany has launched an investigation related to the Amazon’s relations with third-party traders selling on its site, as head said on Sunday.

President of the Federal Cartel Office, Andreas Mundt told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily that, “We are currently investigating whether and how Amazon influences how traders set prices on the market-place,”.

After United States, Germany is the second biggest market in Amazon.

During the starting few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when most of the stores were closed and shoppers flocked online, Mundt said that there had been complaints against Amazon, had blocked some traders because of allegedly over high prices.

He said that,”Amazon must not be a controller of prices,” and also added that Amazon had responded to his office’s requests for information and those statements were being evaluated.

The cartel office was not immediately available to comment.

The company’s policies were designed to make sure that  its partners set a competitive prices. “Amazon selling partners set their own product prices in our store,”.”Our systems are designed to take action against price gouging,”, said Amazon spokeswoman. Also she added that those who had concerns should contact its support team for its merchants.

According to Germny’s watchdog, Antitrust, Amazon had prevented its traders from offering their products through other online sites at a lower price than on its market place, Up until 2013, the trust forced to abandon this policy. Amazon reached a deal with the German authority last year  to overhaul its terms of service for third party merchants by prompting the office to drop a previous seven-month investigation.

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