Italy slaps Amazon with €1.1bn fine for abusing market dominance
Italy’s competitions watchdog has slapped Amazon with a €1.13bn (£965m) fine for harming rival e-commerce logistics services.
The European regulator said Amazon harmed its rivals by only giving companies which used its in-house delivery service access to the ‘prime’ label, implying other logistics companies were of an inferior standard. Amazon called the decision “unjustified and disproportionate,” and said it would appeal.
In its ruling, the Italian watchdog said that “Amazon holds a dominant position in the Italian market” which it had “leveraged to favour the adoption of its own logistics service… to the detriment of the logistics services offered by competing operators.
“Amazon harmed competing e-commerce logistics operators, preventing them from presenting themselves to online sellers as providers of services of comparable quality to Amazon’s,” the regulator added.
In comments to Morning Wire a spokesperson for Amazon said: “We strongly disagree with the decision of the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) and we will appeal. The proposed fine and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate.”
It comes as the European Union turns the screw on big tech as part of a campaign spearheaded by competitions chief Margarethe Vestager.
The European General Court last month served Google with a €2.42 antitrust fine for giving preferential treatment to its own price-comparison shopping service over rivals.
In the UK, legislators have taken a more cautious approach to handing out large fines to tech giants.
A £3bn privacy case against Google was overturned by the UK’s highest court on the same day that the EU issued its fine. In a bid to coordinate global efforts to bring the world’s most powerful tech companies in line with regulation the UK’s CMA hosted a meeting of G7 antitrust leads earlier this month.
Read more: UK Supreme Court blocks £3bn data privacy claim against Google