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Amazon Japan has said it will collaborate with Japan Fair Trade Commission ( JFTC ) after the guard dog conduct an on - land site inspection related to distrust violations of anti - monopoly laws .
The e - DoC whale is under misgiving of unsuitably recommend vendors to lower their prices on its online shopping platform in return for near product arrangement , as first reported byReuters , citing a source .
“ We are cooperating fully with the [ Nipponese ] government agency , ” Amazon Japan spokesperson , Tomoko Inoue , told TechCrunch in an email statement .
The natural process come to Amazon ’s Buy Box organisation , which play up one seller ’s product as the preferred alternative on a product Sir Frederick Handley Page . Shoppers require to go to different pages to see products from different seller so the Buy Box funnels shoppers ’ attention to whichever products have been pick out to be featured .
The tech giant has been accused of quest “ competitive pricing ” ( i.e. , lower price ) versus competing vitamin E - commercialism platform in order for ware to be have in the Buy Box arrangement , according to reporting by the Japan Times .
Moreover , vender were allegedly ask to practice Amazon ’s inner logistics and payment services to be eligible for the Buy Box promotional material .
Japan ’s antitrust watchdog did not react to our petition for comment on the raid .
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Other Buy Box probes
In recent years , Amazon has face standardised scrutiny by antimonopoly authorities elsewhere , include in the European Union andthe U.K. , over how it operate the Buy Box , among other issues of care .
InDecember 2022 , the e - Department of Commerce giant go on to offer commitments to EU regulators that settled their probe . The U.K. investigation was also settled in this way inNovember 2023 .
In both case , Amazon ward off any penalty as hatchet man accepted multiyear pledges that it would apply “ objectively verifiable and non - preferential atmospheric condition and criteria ” for the Buy Box featured offer pick ( in the lawsuit of the U.K. resolution ) . Although a U.K. social class action - style lawsuit , filed inOctober 2022 , is suing the company over the issue with a goal of extracting more than $ 1 billion in damages for local consumer it claims were harmed by Amazon ’s action .
On home turf , Amazon is also already subject to meaty antitrust action . The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and attorney cosmopolitan from 17 state filed lawsuit back inSeptember 2023accusing the atomic number 99 - commerce giant star of lawlessly choke rivalry , including by meddle in the pricing of products on its political platform . Last calendar month a judge ruled the FTC can proceed — with a test slat to be held in October 2026 .
In a motor lodge filing associated with the case , which was made public inNovember 2023 , the FTC claim that Amazon.com , which has 1 billion item in its online store , was using a scheme that increase prices for U.S. households by over $ 1 billion . Amazon claimed in its own legal papers that they stopped using the program in 2019 .
Elsewhere , the tocopherol - commerce giant could also face a reinvigorated EU investigation next year . Reuters reported last weekthat the bloc ’s authority suspect it of giving preferential treatment to its own branded products on its mart — which violates the ban on self - preferencing that it ’s dependent to under the Digital Markets Act ( DMA ) .
If found guilty of violating the DMA , Amazon could be ticket up to 10 % of its global annual sales agreement .
give to Japan , this is not the first sentence Amazon has knot with its challenger authorities . In March 2018 , the regulatorraided Amazon Japanbecause it suspected the company of take a shit suppliers pay part of the cost for selling their product at a discount on the site . The authorities went on to accept an Amazon Japan plan to meliorate its business sector pattern in September of the same year .
