Nothing satiates ongoing ennui quite like mindless consumption — and trustbustin’ keeps those prices low!
And it looks like Amazon will be up against Sherman’s legacy sometime soon.
Amazon.com Inc. must face consumer antitrust litigation challenging “most favored nation”-style policies that have allegedly driven up the prices of “virtually all products offered for sale” online in the U.S., a federal judge in Seattle ruled.
Judge Richard A. Jones let the proposed class action move forward in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, where a group of consumers has accused Amazon of reinstituting its MFN rules—after pledging to abandon them—in the form of so-called “fair pricing” agreements…“Such a pricing provision could—and as plaintiffs allege, does in fact—raise the cost of products on external platforms that charge lower fees,” the judge wrote.
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The litigation at hand would be focused on the vertical agreements that allow third-party sellers to use Amazon’s infrastructure to sell their goods. While there was no hard mention of the dollars at stake at trial, the easier takeaway is that the outcome of this suit could save you money. Anticompetitive behavior is generally profitable because it comes at consumer’s expense, with monopolies costing the average American $300 per month back in 2019. If my money is going to be wasted, which it is, I’d rather it be due to my irresponsible spending habits, not because Bezos and co. like to take a little off the top.
That said, the outcome is not yet written in stone. It will depend on if Amazon’s counsel can prove its behavior met a rule of reason standard, which is far more forgiving than if this were just a per se (legalize for cut-and-dried, facially obvious) antitrust violation. But even if the outcome of this matter were written in stone, Amazon would likely still find a way to turn a nice dollar.
Amazon Loses Antitrust Ruling in Consumer ‘Fair Pricing’ Case [Bloomberg Law]
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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.