Amazon agrees to change marketplace terms in Germany

Frankfurt — Amazon has reached a deal with Germany’s anti-trust authority to overhaul its terms of service for third-party merchants, who had complained of unfair treatment when selling through the world’s biggest online retailer.

The Federal Cartel Office said on Wednesday it was dropping a seven-month investigation after the US e-commerce giant agreed to amend its Business Services Agreement that applies to merchants using its platform.

It added the changes, to take effect in 30 days, would apply not only to Germany, Amazon’s number two market after the US, but also to its country sites in Britain, France, Italy and Spain, as well as “in America and Asia”.

“We have achieved far-reaching improvements for retailers on Amazon’s marketplaces,” cartel office chief Andreas Mundt said in a statement. “We are dropping our investigation.”

Responding, Amazon said the changes to its Business Solutions Agreement would clarify the rights and responsibilities of selling partners that account for 58% of physical merchandise sales on its platform.

“We’ll continue working hard, investing heavily, and inventing new tools and services to help our selling partners around the world reach new customers and grow their business,” said Amazon.

Platforms vs regulators

Silicon Valley’s tech giants have come under increasingly intense scrutiny in Europe, with Alphabet’s Google hit with billions of euros in fines for breaches of EU competition rules.

Germany’s antitrust regulator, while subordinate to Brussels in many regards, has also been active, ordering Facebook to change how it handles user data after finding the social network abused its market dominance.

Facebook has challenged that decision, in contrast to Amazon which came to a relatively quick understanding with the German regulator. No fines had been foreseen in the Amazon case.

At issue is the power of so-called platform companies that provide a venue for others, for example, to sell new or second-hand books. In an inherent conflict of interest, that business has also long been a mainstay of Amazon, which was founded by Jeff Bezos in his garage in 1994 and has gone on to command a market valuation of nearly $1-trillion.

Third-party sellers had complained that Amazon’s terms of service were stacked against them, a view backed by the cartel office which found that Amazon dealt with them in an opaque and arbitrary manner.

New terms

Among the changes in its new terms of service, Amazon will comply with European rules governing liability towards its business partners on its European platforms, whereas earlier it had faced no such liability.

It should now give 30 days notice, and a reason for, removing a merchant from its platform. Before, it could end its relationship with, or block, a seller without warning or explanation.

Merchants using its European marketplaces will be able, in certain circumstances, to take Amazon to court in their own country, whereas before this was only possible in Luxembourg – a deterrent for small-time traders.

They will also be able to appeal against decisions by Amazon regarding who should bear the costs of returns and refunds. Other changes cover product descriptions, ease of understanding Amazon’s terms of services and fairer presentation of customer reviews, the cartel office said.

The changes will directly affect 300,000 merchants active on Amazon.de, the company’s German site, of which an estimated 60%-65% are German. The site turned over €20bn in 2018, making it by far the biggest of Amazon’s European sites.

The German cartel office said it had consulted closely with the European Commission on its probe, as well as with regulators in Austria and Luxembourg that have also opened antitrust cases against Amazon.

Reuters