Amazon faces antitrust probe

Amazon.com Inc.’s “double role” as Germany’s largest retailer and biggest online host for smaller stores is the target of an antitrust probe into the terms the company sets for other sellers, the German Federal Cartel Office said.

The investigation into Amazon’s biggest market outside the U.S. adds to European Union scrutiny of whether the company gathers information on rival sellers’ successes to help launch its own products. German regulators said they’d received “numerous” complaints from sellers.

Europe is a tough regulatory landscape for big technology companies, with fines raining down on Google, a hefty tax back-tax bill for Apple, and the threat of new laws to straitjacket how online platforms handle their customers. Facebook is also being probed by the German antitrust authority over whether it squeezes unfair privacy terms from users.

“Amazon functions as a kind of gatekeeper for customers,” said Andreas Mundt, the head of the authority, the Bundeskartellamt, in an e-mailed press release. “Its double role as the largest retailer and largest marketplace has the potential to hinder other sellers on its platform.”

Amazon “will cooperate with the Bundeskartellamt and continue working hard to support small and medium-sized businesses and help them grow,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Mundt will be looking at terms of business and related practices that breach antitrust rules. That includes liability provisions that could disadvantage sellers, contract clauses that restrict where sellers can take lawsuits against Amazon, rules on product reviews and the “non-transparent” process of blocking and closing sellers accounts. The probe will also look at withholding or delaying payment and clauses that assign rights to use information a seller must provide on the products it offers and the terms of business for delivery.