Newly unsealed court records have revealed what most Amazon sellers already knew and have been saying for years — Amazon punished sellers if their prices were lower on other websites. The documents include internal e-mails, deposition testimony, and confidential corporate presentations that California Attorney General Rob Bonta obtained as part of a civil case his office launched in 2022 accusing Amazon of large-scale price-fixing.
The Guardian obtained and reviewed the documents, which contain evidence that:
- Amazon removed a seller's Buy Box access for selling his $19.99 item just one cent lower on Walmart.
- Sellers were forced to raise their product prices on other marketplaces and websites or risk having their sales plummet by 80% on Amazon.
- Sellers were forced to set up Minimum Advertised Prices for their products on other websites or risk having their items suppressed on Amazon.
- Amazon employees have proactively sought to undermine market competition and were aware of the effects of their actions on prices.
For years, Amazon has defended that its pricing policies were part of the company's “commitment to featuring low prices to earn and maintain customer trust.” However, by simultaneously charging sellers higher fees than other platforms and punishing those sellers when they try to offer lower prices elsewhere (because they have the margin to do so), Amazon has effectively set a price floor across the entire Internet. And that my friends, is an abuse of market power.
The trial in the California attorney general’s lawsuit against Amazon is scheduled to begin on January 19, 2027.