CALIFORNIA SUES AMAZON, ALLEGING ANTITRUST LAW VIOLATIONS

California is suing Amazon, accusing the company of violating the state’s antitrust laws by stifling competition and engaging in practices that push sellers to maintain higher prices on products on other sites.

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The 84-page lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court mirrors another complaint filed last year by the District of Columbia, which was dismissed by a district judge earlier this year and is now going through an appeals process.

But officials in California believe they won’t encounter a similar fate, partly due to information collected during a more than two-year investigation that involved subpoenas and interviews with sellers, Amazon’s competitors as well as current and former employees at the company.

In the lawsuit, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said Amazon used contract provisions to effectively bar sellers from offering lower prices for products on non-Amazon sites, including on the sellers’ own websites. That, in turn, harms the ability of other retailers to compete.