Antitrust, what the Lazio TAR decided on Amazon
The Lazio TAR suspended the behavioral obligations imposed on Amazon by the Antitrust, but not the 1 billion euro fine. All the details
The Lazio TAR suspended the behavioral obligations imposed on Amazon by the Antitrust (Agcm) in the provision for abuse of a dominant position in December last year.
No suspension, however, for the maxi fine of over 1 billion euros imposed on the companies Amazon Italia Services, Amazon Italia Logistica, Amazon Europe Core, Amazon Services Europe, Amazon Eu.
– Read the in-depth article by Startmag : For and against: roundabout on the Antitrust fine to Amazon
THE CAUTION ORDER OF THE LAZIO TAR
This is, in short, the sense of a precautionary order of the Lazio TAR, issued as part of an appeal proposed to request the suspension of the effectiveness – and the subsequent cancellation in the trial of the merits – of the provision of the Agcm relating to the "A528 – Fba Amazon" procedure taken on November 30, 2021 and notified on December 9, 2021 and, where deemed appropriate, also of the resolution to initiate the investigation procedure, the Communication of the preliminary findings and any other related deed.
THE AGCM'S POSITION ON AMAZON
According to the Antitrust Authority, Amazon would have damaged competing operators in the logistics service for e-commerce, preventing them from offering themselves to online sellers as suppliers of services of a quality comparable to that of Amazon's logistics.
Upon completion of the investigation, a maximum fine of over 1 billion euros was decided, as well as a series of technical behavioral obligations imposed on Amazon, including the granting of all sales and visibility privileges on its platform to all third-party sellers who know how to comply with fair and non-discriminatory standards for the fulfillment of their orders, in line with the level of service that Amazon intends to guarantee Prime consumers; the definition and publication of these standards and the refraining from negotiating with the carriers and / or with competing logistics operators, on behalf of the sellers, rates and other contractual conditions applied for the logistics of their orders on Amazon.it, outside of FBA (its own logistics service).
WHAT THE TAR HAS ESTABLISHED
The TAR today, premising that "the merit issues raised require, due to their extreme complexity, the resolution typical of the merit phase", held that, as regards the prejudice envisaged in relation to the payment of the pecuniary sanction, "it was made generic reference to the 'hyperbolic' amount of the sanction itself, as well as to the large sum to be paid as interest, without however providing useful elements to recognize the presence of extreme gravity and urgency, and, in particular, to demonstrate that the immediate payment of the pecuniary sanction could significantly compromise the business capacity and the economic-financial equilibrium of the appellant party ".
Conversely, however, the judges considered the request to suspend the application of the obligations worthy of acceptance "due to the particular pervasiveness of the obligations imposed by the Authority as well as the risk of a diversified implementation of different measures at European and Italian level".
THE HEARING ON OCTOBER 26
The public hearing on the merits is set for next October 26th.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/antitrust-amazon-tar-lazio/ on Thu, 10 Mar 2022 15:37:53 +0000.