Joining suit, AG Campbell accuses e-retailer of ‘greed’

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell is accusing Amazon of engaging in “corporate greed” as it seeks to dominate smaller competitors in the e-commerce industry.

Campbell’s statement comes as Massachusetts joins 16 other states and the federal government in a lawsuit alleging that Amazon has employed monopolistic practices.

“Amazon has become dominant as an online superstore. But — out of view from the average person, family, or business — Amazon has used that dominance to inflate prices, coerce third-party sellers, and stifle competition,” Campbell said in a statement Tuesday.

The lawsuit, announced Tuesday, alleges that Amazon has buried the listings of thirdparty retailers who attempt to sell products for lower prices on competing websites. The suit also accuses Amazon of compelling merchants to use Amazon’s fulfillment services, such as storage or delivery.

In addition, the statement from Campbell claims that Amazon “extracts enormous monopoly rents from everyone within its reach” by flooding search results pages with advertisements, prioritizing Amazon’s own products, and charging sellers burdensome fees in a bid to burnish the company’s bottom line.

Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, whose agency is also part of the suit, said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the lawsuit is “fundamentally about protecting free and fair competition.”

“US antitrust laws prohibit firms from using their monopoly power to punish or preclude or prevent competition, and that’s what our lawsuit lays out and that is what Amazon has done,” Khan said.

In its response, Amazon called the lawsuit “misguided,” arguing that it could “force Amazon to engage in practices that actually harm consumers and the many businesses that sell in our store — such as having to feature higher prices, offer slower or less reliable Prime shipping, and make Prime more expensive and less convenient.”

“We will contest this lawsuit, and we will also continue inventing to put our customers — both consumers and the businesses that sell in our store — first,” the statement added.

Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island are also among the states suing Amazon.