The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) fined on Thursday Amazon Inc.'s European and Italian branches €1.128 billion over violation of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Article 102, or abuse of its dominant position in the market.
The AGCM said such a status allowed Amazon to "promote its own logistics service" Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) among the sellers on its website. The agency found the company managed to link "the use of the FBA service to access a set of essential benefits to obtain visibility and better sales prospects on Amazon.it." The AGCM also found that Amazon gave an advantage to some of its users in comparison to third-party sellers based on their involvement with its benefits program.
"In doing so, Amazon has harmed competing e-commerce logistics operators by preventing them from proposing themselves to online sellers as providers of services of a quality comparable to that of Amazon's fulfillment," the agency concluded.
