Germany says Amazon’s price controls likely break the law

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, has issued a statement claiming Amazon’s price-setting practices likely violate the European Union’s anti-trust laws.

According to the agency, the e-commerce giant does not allow third-party sellers to price their products above a certain limit.

“As Amazon directly competes with the Marketplace sellers on its platform, influencing its competitors’ pricing, including in the form of price caps, is inherently problematic from a competition perspective,” Andreas Mundt, president of the Bundeskartellamt, said in a statement.

• Amazon’s Marketplace comprises 60% of online sales in Germany, making the company a hugely consequential player in the country’s e-commerce space.

Mundt added that these caps become even more problematic when sellers are unable to cover their costs—a scenario that could become more likely if global tariffs raise prices.

The agency said Amazon employs algorithmic price control mechanisms that in cases where an offer is classified as a “pricing error” will automatically remove items. And for offers classified as “significantly high prices” or “uncompetitive prices,” the mechanism could limit access to the item by not displaying it in the Buy Box or restricting its presence in search results.

“Our preliminary assessment was also influenced by the fact that the parameters of the price control mechanisms used by Amazon are set at its own discretion and the price caps for Marketplace sellers are not transparent,” Mundt said.

An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that the company did “not agree with the Bundeskartellamt’s assessment in any way.”

However, Amazon has made it clear that keeping prices low is a priority.

“We're doing everything we can to keep our prices low for customers in a way that makes economic sense,” Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told shareholders last month.

CEO Andy Jassy noted that the average selling price has not appreciably gone up, though he said that “reflects some advanced inbounding our third-party sellers have done, but a fair amount of this is that most sellers just haven’t changed pricing yet.”