Stricter supervision remains
Amazon’s lawsuit against BGH ruling failed
April 23, 2024, 9:33 p.m
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In July 2022, the Federal Cartel Office will place the online retailer Amazon under stricter observation. The group then files a lawsuit with the Federal Court of Justice – and fails. However, he doesn’t want to give up yet.
The online group Amazon has failed in its lawsuit against stricter supervision by the Federal Cartel Office. The Cartel Senate of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe confirmed the assessment “that Amazon has an outstanding cross-market importance for competition.” The corresponding classification by the Cartel Office was therefore legal.
In July 2022, the Federal Cartel Office certified Amazon’s “outstanding” market power on the basis of a new regulation and thus placed the online retailer under stricter observation. Amazon filed a complaint against this.
DMA law takes effect
The Cartel Senate looked into the matter for the first time in June and found no violations of European or German law in the Federal Cartel Office’s actions. The judges have now confirmed that the antitrust watchdogs had “correctly” determined that Amazon has significant “strategic and competitive potential” that allows it to “exercise significant influence on the business activities of third parties.”
In June, however, the Cartel Senate did not want to rule out the possibility that it might become necessary to submit questions to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. However, the judges now also ruled out this and referred in particular to the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), which has now come into force: The EU Commission has also classified Amazon as a central internet company, a so-called gatekeeper, under the DMA.
Amazon wants to “consider further legal remedies”
Amazon criticized the BGH decision. “The retail market, both online and offline, is very large and extremely competitive,” said a spokeswoman. “We do not agree with the court’s decision and will consider further legal remedies,” she announced. However, the Federal Court of Justice declared itself to be “responsible in the first and last instance” in the matter. When asked, the group initially did not provide any further information about possible further legal remedies.
The classification of Amazon by the Federal Cartel Office was the first step in a two-stage process. In a second step, the company can be prohibited from certain practices, such as favoring its own offers on the trading platform. In this way, large digital companies should be better controlled.
Precedent for lawsuits by other tech giants?
The Bonn cartel watchdog welcomed the verdict. “We are pleased about the confirmation by the Federal Court of Justice,” said Cartel Office chief Andreas Mundt. “This was the first and therefore even more important decision by the Federal Court of Justice on our new instrument for the supervision of large digital companies.”
The Cartel Office is now continuing its ongoing proceedings against Amazon with greater strength. “This ruling also provides momentum for our ongoing proceedings against other Internet companies such as Alphabet (Google), Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft, as well as possible new proceedings,” added Mundt. The antitrust office has also placed US corporations under stricter supervision and initiated several proceedings. The corresponding classification is initially limited to five years.