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While the ruling is seen as a win for the FTC, the judge also tossed out several complaints from individual US states.
Following a partial dismissal last week, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been given the go ahead to pursue an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.
First filed in September 2023, the lawsuit from the FTC and several state attorneys accused the e-commerce giant of using “anticompetitive and unfair strategies” to illegally maintain monopoly power.
“Amazon deploys a series of anticompetitive practices that suppress price competition and push prices higher across much of the internet by creating an artificial price floor and penalising sellers that offer lower prices off Amazon,” the complaint said, calling this Amazon’s “anti-discounting strategy”.
Amazon filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the conduct mentioned in the complaint is “well-established forms of competition” and fails to allege “plausible anticompetitive effects”.
However, in a unsealed court order, district judge John Chun said the complaint against Amazon “adequately alleges that the challenged discounting practices are anticompetitive”.
While the green light on the antitrust case is a major blow for the tech behemoth, the judge did grant some small wins for Amazon, by dismissing some of the claims brought by some state attorneys. Claims brought by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Maryland have been dismissed.
In a prepared statement, spokesperson Douglas Farrar said the FTC is pleased with the court’s decision. “The ways Amazon illegally maintains its monopolies and the harm they cause – including suppressed competition and higher prices for shoppers and sellers – will be on full display at trial. This case ultimately seeks to pry loose Amazon’s monopolistic control and restore competition.”
Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle told news outlets that the early-stage ruling requires the court to assume all facts alleged in the complaint are true. “They are not,” he said.
“Moving forward the FTC will have to prove its claims in court, and we’re confident those claims will not hold up when the FTC has to prove them with evidence.”
The ruling comes just a few months after search giant Google was declared a monopoly, with the US Department of Justice considering breaking up the tech company.
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