2025-06-02: "Bundeskartellamt has concerns about Amazon’s use of so-called price control mechanisms"

The German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) — Germany's national competition regulatory agency — has published preliminary results of its investigation against Amazon. In the focus of the investigation has been the Amazon Marketplace.

In its online stores, Amazon itself (“Amazon Retail”) and other sellers (“amazon.de Marketplace”) compete. While this is already confusing for consumers, the antitrust office sees a conflict of interest and an abuse of market power by Amazon. The antirust body complains Amazon ranks sellers with “high prices” invisible, and does not even communicate what is considered a “high price” transparently.

Amazon ironically calls its practices the “Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy”.