Amazon is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 state attorney generals for “acting like a monopoly” and preventing businesses from emerging and succeeding.
The agency and a group of state attorney generals are accusing Amazon of preventing competitors from lowering prices, degrading the quality of products in the marketplace, overcharging customers, and powering down innovation. The FTC says the delivery giant uses “a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.”
The lawsuit says Amazon is preventing companies from advancing in the marketplace and new businesses from breaking through due to the company’s dominance, thus creating a monopoly.
Amazon responded to the suit in a statement saying while the company has respect for the FTC, “Unfortunately, it appears the current FTC is radically departing from that approach, filing a misguided lawsuit against Amazon that would, if successful, force Amazon to engage in practices that actually harm consumers and the many businesses that sell in our store—such as having to feature higher prices, offer slower or less reliable Prime shipping, and make Prime more expensive and less convenient.”