The Federal Trade Commission is preparing a hammer to come down on Amazon. The agency is set to file its antitrust lawsuit against the online giant after the company failed to offer concessions to address its concerns, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Amazon’s legal representatives held a video call with the FTC on August 15, a procedural step called a “last-rites meeting” since it offers the company a final chance to change their practices and head off a lawsuit. The lawyers failed to offer any specific concessions, WSJ reported. The agency is targeting to file the lawsuit by late September.
The lawsuit could have huge ramifications on one of the largest online retailers in the world, a company that’s shaped how we shop and the logistics of package deliveries. The FTC has long looked at whether Amazon had abused its power as a platform, favoring its own Amazon-branded products over third-party retailers that are obligated to do business on the site. WSJ said that the lawsuit could suggest “structural remedies” that would lead to the breakup of the company.
Some of those business practices include its “Fulfillment by Amazon” logistics program and pricing on its site by third-party retailers, WSJ reported.
Over the year, Amazon has grown to be not just a online marketplace, but a movie and TV studio, the operator of Whole Foods and Amazon-branded supermarkets, and one of the key providers of web services around the world.
This would be a marquee case for FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan, whose profile rose after a 2017 Yale Law Journal article that argued that Amazon wielded too much power. It’s unclear whether Amazon could’ve offered any concessions to satisfy the company, as a lawsuit against the tech giant was widely anticipated.
A spokeswoman for Amazon declined to comment.