Amazon must meet EU requirements to avoid 47bn dollar fine

Longstanding anti-competition practices have clouded Amazon’s success but a new deal with EU regulators means the online giant avoids a 47 billion dollar fine, the equivalent of 10 percent of its revenue.

Amazon, going forward, will treat all marketplace sellers equally and use "non-discriminatory conditions” when products are shown on its website. The move is a commitment satisfy EU laws and anti-trust policies.

“While we disagree with several of the preliminary conclusions the [EC] made, we have engaged constructively to ensure we can continue to serve customers across Europe,” an Amazon spokesperson said, as quoted by The Times.

Amazon's commitments also address the European Commission's competition concerns over Amazon's use of non-public marketplace seller data and over a possible bias in granting to sellers access to its Buy Box and its Prime programme.

Where it concerns data, Amazon proposed not to use non-public data relating to, or derived from, the independent sellers' activities on its marketplace, for its retail business. This applies to both Amazon's automated tools and employees that could cross-use the data from Amazon Marketplace, for retail decisions. Amazon said it would also not use such data for the purposes of selling branded goods as well as its private label products.

For third-party sellers, Amazon said it would improve the presentation of the second competing Buy Box offer by making it more prominent and to include a review mechanism in case the presentation is not attracting adequate consumer attention.

If Amazon breaches any of its commitments, the Commission could impose a fine of up to 10 percent of Amazon's total annual turnover.