Amazon.com has faced an antitrust lawsuit from the California state government for forcing sellers to set the lowest price, Bloomberg reported on the 14th.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued an antitrust lawsuit on Tuesday, saying Amazon.com had prevented sellers from offering lower prices than the online retailer on other sites and imposed severe penalties for not doing so.
Bonta said the deal cut Amazon.com from competing with other online retailers, while charging inflated fees for sellers and forcing consumers to pay higher prices.
If sellers cut prices from competitors such as Walmart, Target or eBay, there is a risk that they will be invisible on Amazon.com or even fail to sell on the site, Bonta said.
The lawsuit comes three years after it was reported that Amazon.com’s pricing policy was forcing rival sites like Walmart to raise prices, Bloomberg added.
This isn’t the first time Amazon.com has been sued for such a pricing policy. Last year, the Washington DC Department of Justice faced a similar lawsuit.
Amazon.com won in the first trial, but the Washington, DC Department of Justice filed an appeal, claiming that the court misapplied the antitrust law.