Amazon asked a federal court on Friday to dismiss a US government antitrust lawsuit which accuses the corporate of using illegal strategies to boost profits at its online retail empire, including an algorithm that allegedly pushed up prices by greater than $1 billion.
In its motion to dismiss, Amazon said the Federal Trade Commission, in a lawsuit filed in September, confused “common retail practices” with anticompetitive conduct and failed to discover harm to consumers.
“Amazon promptly matches rivals’ discounts, features competitively priced deals moderately than overpriced ones, and ensures best-in class delivery for its Prime subscribers,” the corporate said in asking for the lawsuit to be “dismissed in its entirety.”
The FTC lawsuit was certainly one of 4 that the Trump and Biden administrations have filed since 2020 against the businesses that dominate the web.
The Biden team has primarily focused on atypical consumer items like housing, food and airline tickets.
The FTC lawsuit said Amazon, which has 1 billion items in its online superstore, created a “secret algorithm” named Project Nessie to discover products for which it might raise prices without losing customers. The FTC said Amazon used Project Nessie to extract greater than $1 billion from Americans.
In its filing, Amazon said Nessie was discontinued in 2019 and that the corporate matches other corporations’ lowest prices.
The FTC was also critical of Amazon’s decision to require sellers under the corporate’s Prime feature to use its logistics and delivery services regardless that many preferred to use a less expensive service or one that might also serve customers on other platforms.
Amazon said that using Amazon’s success services was voluntary, including for products sold under its Prime service.
Amazon’s average fees for sellers using its success services increased from 27% in 2014 to 39.5% in 2018, the FTC said.
Amazon also argued that it competed with other online superstores like Walmart and Goal, and a spread of stores with specialized marketssuch as Best Buy, Home Depot, Kroger, Costco, Staples, Walgreens, Nike and Apple.
“The criticism’s ‘online superstore’ market is implausible since it suggests, for instance, that buyers wouldn’t consider buying a low-priced TV on Bestbuy.com only because Best Buy doesn’t also sell shoes,” Amazon argued.