Austria: Announced investigation into Amazon for alleged abuse of dominance

On 14 February 2019, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (BWB) initiated its investigation into Amazon for allegedly abusing its dominance. The BWB had received several complaints in previous years concerning the alleged discriminatory and unfair treatment of sellers on Amazon's platform while treating its own products in a favourable manner. Specifically, Amazon is alleged to have terminated the accounts of retailers without warning, deleted product rankings without reason, implemented restrictive clauses into contracts with retailers, as well as obliged retailers to disclose their purchase prices.