Italy's antitrust regulator penalised Amazon $1.28 billion on Thursday for, allegedly, abusing its market dominance in the nation, a decision that comes after the e-commerce giant faced a number of other competition troubles in Europe.
Known as AGCM, the regulator asserted that Amazon's European and Italian subsidiaries have harmed competitors' ability to sell online by connecting sellers' use of Amazon's logistics service to incentives designed to increase online exposure, such as Amazon Prime.
Amazon stated that it "vehemently disagreed" with the judgment of the Italian regulator and would appeal.
Global regulatory monitoring of technology firms has increased in recent years, in response to a series of privacy and disinformation crises, as well as concerns from certain businesses that they abuse their market position.
Apart from Amazon, Alphabet's Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have also come under increased scrutiny in Europe.
The Italian competition authority stated in a statement that Amazon disadvantaged competitors in the e-commerce logistics industry by favoring its own "Fulfillment by Amazon" shipping service.
The regulator said merchants on Amazon who use the FBA service benefit from increased visibility and sales opportunities on the platform, as opposed to sellers who use third-party delivery systems.
Sellers who opt out of FBA are not permitted to be affiliated with Amazon's Prime subscription service, limiting their visibility to the platform's most loyal and high-spending customers, the regulator notes.
"Amazon prohibits third-party sellers from associating the Prime mark with offers that are not fulfilled through FBA," the company stated.
The Prime designation makes it easy to sell to Amazon's more than 7 million most loyal and high-spending customers.
Additionally, the antitrust authorities stated that it would impose corrective measures that will be reviewed by a monitoring trustee.
"Sellers pick FBA for its efficiency, convenience, and reasonable pricing," the U.S.-based organization stated in a statement.
The EU Commission stated that it worked closely with AGCM on the matter as part of the European Competition Network in order to ensure consistency with its two ongoing investigations into Amazon's business practices.
The first investigation was launched in July 2019 to determine if Amazon's use of sensitive data from independent shops selling on its marketplace violated EU competition law.
The second, scheduled for late 2020, examined the possibility of Amazon's own retail offerings receiving preferential status over those of marketplace vendors who utilize Amazon's logistics and delivery capabilities.
