United Kingdom: Opened consultation on Amazon's offer to change marketplace rules to address CMA concerns on competition

On 26 July 2023, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened a consultation on Amazon's offer to change its marketplace rules until 1 September 2023. In particular, Amazon offers commitments to change its treatment of third-party sellers on its UK marketplace platform to address the concerns raised by the CMA including that third-party sellers’ product offers can be prominently displayed to customers in the “Buy Box” on a product page when they are competing against Amazon’s products and preventing Amazon from using data obtained from third-party sellers to give itself an unfair competitive advantage. The following four commitments are proposed by Amazon. Firstly, Amazon will not use data from third-party sellers to gain an unfair competitive advantage in its retail business. Secondly, all product offers will be treated equally when deciding which ones will be featured in the “Buy Box”. Thirdly, third-party sellers will have the ability to negotiate delivery rates directly with independent providers of prime delivery services, potentially leading to lower delivery costs for customers. Lastly, Amazon will appoint an independent trustee to ensure compliance with these commitments.