Canada: Ruling announced against Amazon for deceptive price advertising practices

On 11 January 2017, the Canadian Competition Bureau (CCB) reached an agreement with Amazon, as part of which Amazon is obliged to pay a fine of CAD 1.1 million. Amazon had engaged in pricing practices on Amazon.ca that involved the comparison of prices to "regular" or "list" prices, which according to the CCB, led to consumers thinking they were saving money on purchases. As a consequence, consumers were made to think that the prices on Amazon.ca were lower than market prices. Amazon did so without verifying the "list" prices it received from its suppliers, thereby misleading consumers since the difference between regular and sale prices was not accurately checked. Furthermore, Amazon also violated Canada's anti-spam law, which prevents wrong or misleading electronic representations.