The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the e-commerce company of monopolistic practices that raise prices for consumers and prevent competitors from getting into the online-shopping marketplace.
“Amazon is a monopolist and it is exploiting its monopolies in ways that leave shoppers and sellers paying more for worse service,” FTC chair Lina Khan told reporters.
“In a competitive world, a monopoly hiking prices and degrading service would create an opening for rivals and potential rivals to … grow and compete,” she added. “But Amazon’s unlawful monopolistic strategy has closed off that possibility, and the public is paying dearly as a result.”
The federal regulator and a bipartisan group of attorneys general are seeking a permanent injunction on Amazon’s monopolistic control, per the lawsuit. As of now, the plaintiffs are not seeking to break up the company.
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin all joined the FTC in the newly announced litigation.
New Hampshire attorney general John Formella submitted a statement to National Review on why his state decided to pursue legal action against the company.
“We are suing Amazon on behalf of New Hampshire’s consumers and small businesses alike. Amazon’s ongoing pattern of illegal conduct takes advantage of shoppers and undermines small businesses throughout the Granite State,” Formella said Tuesday.
“We have seen Amazon illegally work to stifle competition online and use its monopoly power to force small businesses into paying enormous fees while inflating the prices they are charging consumers. Our aim is to help enhance New Hampshire entrepreneurship by working to restore a fair, open, and competitive online economy for all Granite Staters.”
The suit, filed in the U.S. Western District of Washington where Amazon headquarters is located, alleges the major conglomerate continues limiting competition by pushing anti-discounting tactics to punish sellers and deter smaller, online retailers from lowering their prices, among other illegal measures.
Additionally, Amazon has been hijacking the customer experience by replacing search results with paid advertisements and demonstrating bias in said search results as well as charging expensive fees for sellers to do business on its website, according to the suit.
Scott Brown, chairman of the Competitiveness Coalition nonprofit, released a statement following the news, saying the antitrust lawsuit “is Bidenomics at its finest.”
“From lingering inflation, higher borrowing costs and souring views on the labor market, almost every economic metric is moving in the wrong direction, and the Biden Administration is now trying to take away a service relied on by 180 million Americans,” Brown said.
“Since her time at Yale Law school, FTC Chair Lina Khan has made Amazon her white whale, and today she got her wish. Her stunt is the latest in a long series of egregious overreach, and should be rejected like countless other cases brought forward by this FTC,” he added. “If it isn’t, the American consumer is in for a world of pain.”