Amazon will reportedly face antitrust charges from the European Union

Jeff Bezos
(Image credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

The European Union is reportedly set to file antitrust charges against Amazon.

The EU will hit Amazon with formal antitrust charges "as early as next week or the week after" over its treatment of third-party sellers, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In a statement of objections, The Wall Street Journal reports, the EU "accuses Amazon of scooping up data from third-party sellers and using that information to compete against them, for instance by launching similar products." A decision on whether the company violated competition laws is "expected to take at least another year," the report says, but Amazon could potentially face a fine of 10 percent of its annual revenue.

In April, the Journal reported that Amazon employees had used data from third-party sellers to develop competing products; Amazon at the time said that "we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch."

Members of the House Judiciary Committee in response to that Journal report in May asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify before Congress, in a letter saying that if the report is correct, "then statements Amazon made to the committee about the company's business practices appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious."

Explore More
Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.