The District of Columbia launched an antitrust complaint against Amazon.com, Inc., accusing the e-commerce company of wielding monopoly power that has resulted in higher prices for consumers, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Washington, D.C. attorney general Karl Racine claims Amazon stifles competition by exerting control over third-party sellers and fixing prices on its online marketplace.
Racine argues this kind of arrangement means sellers roll Amazon's heavy fees into their prices, creating an "artificially high" price ceiling across the online retail market, The Washington Post reported.
Amazon chief executive and founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.
"We filed this antitrust lawsuit to put an end to Amazon's illegal control of prices across the online retail market," The Associated Press quoted Racine as saying in a conference call with reporters.
Amazon's prices include fees which can run as high as 40% of the total price and this policy, Racine said, could make prices for the same product more expensive on platforms that compete with Amazon, according to Reuters.
The attorney general said Amazon has used its dominant position in the online retail market "to win at all costs." He said Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, controls more than half of online market sales.
"Mr. Racine has it exactly backward - sellers set their own prices for the products they offer in our store," Jodi Seth, a representative for Amazon, said in a statement quoted by The New York Times.
The lawsuit is believed to be the first government antitrust suit against Amazon in the U.S. The Federal Trade Commission has also pursued its own inquiry on whether Amazon violated antitrust laws.
Several states, including Washington, New York and California, have launched probes of their own.
In November, European Union regulators filed antitrust charges alleging Amazon was using its access to data from sellers that use its platform to gain an unfair advantage over them, AP said.
Bezos is stepping down this summer as chief executive. He will be replaced by Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon's cloud-computing business.
