California Attorney General Rob Bonta has asked a court to temporarily bar Amazon from what he said were price-fixing practices that increase costs for consumers.
The motion for a preliminary injunction, filed on Feb. 23 in San Francisco Superior Court, comes after a 2022 complaint alleged that Amazon conducts anticompetitive business practices that undermine price competition and inflate prices across the state.
Bonta highlighted new evidence revealed in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the online retail juggernaut. He said the discovery process has uncovered communications in which Amazon implored vendors to increase prices on competitors’ platforms or remove products entirely, often with the rivals’ knowledge, to safeguard Amazon’s margins.
“Amazon doesn’t have cheap prices because of its good business sense,” Bonta said. “Amazon’s ‘cheap’ prices are the result of intimidation and illegality that drove up prices for consumers across the marketplace.”
Bonta said that Amazon worked to undermine consumers’ pursuit of better deals.
“In California, we welcome competition and innovation,” Bonta said. “We welcome companies that succeed by offering better prices and better service. What we have here is a greedy, behemoth corporation intentionally increasing prices in the marketplace to get richer and richer off the backs of consumers who are struggling with affordability.”
Bonta acknowledged that most of the evidence is redacted from the public, and he said his office is working to ensure it is released.
“Amazon’s scheme is neither subtle nor complex,” Bonta said. “It is price fixing, plain and simple, black and white, and we’re asking the court to immediately halt this conduct while the underlying case proceeds.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amazon boasts almost 200 million Prime members nationwide, and a 2021 survey showed 92 percent of shoppers prefer buying there over competitors, with 75 percent checking Amazon first for prices and reviews.
Amazon’s market share, according to the suit, is a result of its contracts preempting higher prices elsewhere. Users who charge more on other platforms risk losing featured placements and may even face account suspension.
At the trial, which is set for January 2027, Bonta is looking to stop those tactics and recoup damages on behalf of Californians.
Amazon has faced other lawsuits, including two in Arizona that targeted Amazon’s cancellation process and its “Buy Box” algorithm.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 states argued in a 2023 lawsuit filed in Seattle that Amazon employs a secret algorithm to inflate the prices consumers pay, via a program internally known as “Project Nessie.”
“The sole purpose of Project Nessie was to further hike consumer prices by manipulating other online stores into raising their prices,” the FTC alleged.
Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle said at the time that the FTC “grossly mischaracterizes” the pricing tool and that the company stopped using it several years ago.
