Amazon appeals against fine

Amazon said it would launch an appeal against a €1.1bn fine after Italian antitrust investigators found it had given unfair preference to sellers who also shipped goods through the online retail giant’s logistics service.

Amazon said it would challenge the decision, saying the “proposed fine and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate”.

When announcing its probe, Brussels said it would allow the Italian authority to carry out its investigation over concerns Amazon might be “artificially” favouring “its retail offers and offers of marketplace sellers that use Amazon’s logistics and delivery services”.

Because of the advantage of signing up with Amazon for delivery, the regulator said Amazon had damaged “E-commerce logistics competitors” that could not offer the same benefits.

A labour union representative said the pandemic and the mass consumption model had worsened labour conditions for platforms’ logistics contractors and drivers.

Italy’s competition regulator said yesterday Amazon had been more lenient in applying performance criteria, which can lead in extreme cases to merchants being suspended if sellers were also paying for Amazon to ship their parcels.

The regulator said Amazon had to offer equal treatment in terms of offers made by sellers using their carriers and sellers using the Amazon carrier services.

On Black Friday, at the end of November, a group of logistics workers protested outside Amazon’s largest logistics hub near Piacenza, northern Italy. In a statement, it said: “More than half of all annual sales on Amazon in Italy come from [small and medium businesses], and their success is at the heart of our business model.” Andrea Orlando, Italy labour minister, praised a Brussels draft directive for regulating the platforms’ employment practices as an “important step forward and a priority for the Italian government”.

The Italian political debate over the regulation of platforms has been charged with tension in recent years as their market share grew along with their profits, and workers demanded more rights and higher salaries.

The Italian move comes as national competition authorities rushed to impose multimillion-euro fines on other online tech giants.

Since June, the French competition watchdog has hit Google with €720m in fines in two separate cases.

Summarized www.sba.tax

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