Amazon requests that an FTC complaint accusing it of “monopolistic practices” be dismissed from court

Amazon moved to have the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust lawsuit against it dismissed on Friday in a Western Washington district court. In September, the Federal Trade Commission and seventeen state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Amazon, claiming the corporation engages in monopolistic activities that are unjust to consumers and other businesses. According to Bloomberg, Amazon is now contending that the FTC failed to present proof of any harm or price increases caused by its actions to consumers.

According to the FTC lawsuit, Amazon employs unethical business practices to suppress its competitors. These practices include penalizing sellers who offer their goods for less money elsewhere by burying them in search results and pressuring sellers to utilize Amazon’s fulfilment service by linking it to Prime membership. Additionally, it charges Amazon with deploying an algorithmic technique known as Project Nessie to inflate prices between 2016 and 2018. This increase totaled over $1 billion, as stated in the lawsuit.

According to the AP, Amazon claimed that it is just indulging in “common retail practices” that “benefit consumers and are the essence of competition” in its move to dismiss. The lawsuit “implausibly and illogically assumes that Amazon’s efforts to keep featured prices low somehow raised consumer prices across the whole economy,” according to a statement written by Amazon attorney Heidi Hubbard to Bloomberg.