Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP filed a lawsuit on behalf of consumers, against Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon.com Services, LLC for alleged breaches of antitrust and other laws.
Amazon.com is the unrivaled dominant online retailer. It commands more market share than the next fifteen largest online retailers combined. Amazon has achieved this incredible control over ecommerce not through fair competition on the marketplace, but by unfairly enforcing a price floor across the entire internet, duping its customers and strong-arming its wholesale suppliers and third-party sellers. American consumers, as a result, have been overpaying for online goods for years. Plaintiff Christopher Hopper brings a suit on behalf of himself and others similarly situated to recover for the antitrust violations that have come at the expense of consumers everywhere.
Karin Swope, a partner at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy said:
“Consumers have filed this lawsuit against Amazon for causing inflated prices in the e-commerce marketplace. Amazon's power is so unprecedented that it controls the pricing for online purchasing beyond its own platform and to other e-commerce retailers. We believe this violates antitrust laws and harms consumers by artificially setting prices.”.
As alleged in the complaint, Amazon engaged in both vertical and horizontal price fixing by punishing sellers and wholesalers if they did not comply with Amazon’s demands on pricing. Then, Amazon was free to increase its prices for essential aspects of seller and wholesaler needs like shipping and advertising, costs which were passed on to consumers. With its monopoly power established, Amazon was further able to degrade its services to customers, thereby increasing its profit and largess. This case seeks to compensate consumers for the monopolistic and anticompetitive conduct Amazon has been enforcing for years.
Gia Jung, a lawyer at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy said:
“As alleged in the complaint, for too long has Amazon been able to force consumers and sellers to pay more by imposing its monopoly power on any seller who dares to price lower. American shoppers must be compensated for this misconduct and protected from this scheme in the future.”
