OTTAWA – On Friday, the Competition Bureau said it is “inviting market participants to provide input to inform its civil investigation into conduct by Amazon,” meaning it wants to hear from Canadians about whether or not the company is behaving in an anti-competitive manner.
“The Bureau’s investigation is ongoing and there is no conclusion of wrongdoing at this time,” added the announcement.
The Bureau is studying whether or not the world’s largest retailer “is engaging in conduct on its Canadian marketplace, Amazon.ca, that is impacting competition to the detriment of consumers and companies that do business in Canada,” reads the press release.
Friday’s statement did not say the Bureau is investigating other portions of Amazon’s business, such as its Amazon Web Services, the largest cloud computing provider in the world.
“The Bureau is conducting its investigation under the restrictive trade practices provisions of the Competition Act, with a focus on potential abuse of dominance. Areas of interest to the Bureau include:
- any past or existing Amazon policies which may impact third-party sellers’ willingness to offer their products for sale at a lower price on other retail channels, such as their own websites or other online marketplaces;
- the ability of third-party sellers to succeed on Amazon’s marketplace without using its ‘Fulfilment By Amazon’ service or advertising on Amazon.ca; and
- any efforts or strategies by Amazon that may influence consumers to purchase products it offers for sale over those offered by competing sellers.
Both California and the European Union have open investigations looking into Amazon’s treatment of third party sellers which operate on its platform.
The Bureau is asking sellers and businesses which believe they have relevant information to confidentially share it by emailing it to ic.mpd-amazon-dpm-amazon.ic@canada.ca.
