In order to escape a 10% fine, US online retail giant Amazon has reached a settlement with the European Union and agreed to implement significant operational changes.
The European Competition Commission in a news conference said, ‘The Commission has decided to accept commitments offered by Amazon. These commitments address our preliminary competition concerns about Amazon practices on its e-commerce marketplace.’
According to Reuters, the retail company was accused of three offences.
In the first instance, the corporation was accused of being unfair to other platform merchants by pushing its own product to the top using its data, size, and influence.
The second charge dealt with equal treatment of sellers when ranking offers the ‘buy box’ on the website, generating bulk orders.
In the third case, the retail company agreed to allow the sellers under the prime feature to choose their own logistics and service timings other than itself.
Amazon agreed to stop using the data of vendors for its own purposes as part of the settlement.
A spokesperson for Amazon said, ‘While we continue to disagree with several of the preliminary conclusions the European Commission made, we have engaged constructively to ensure that we can continue to serve customers across Europe.’
The EU further added that the commitments will stay in force for seven years in the case of the Prime and Buy box policy and five years for other parts.
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