It is reported that U.S. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin has announced the need to conduct an antitrust investigation against many large technology companies. Including Amazon, as the activities of this giant retailer have an extremely negative impact on small businesses. Earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice made an official statement that it plans to conduct a mass inspection of all large enough companies. The purpose of this audit is to find out how these companies have achieved their current power. The Ministry is wondering if they have taken any steps that could be considered illegal ways to compete.
Amazon’s response to Mnuchin’s words was immediate. The company claims that small and medium businesses, on the contrary, thrive with it. After all, about 58% of Amazon’s sales of goods are made by independent sellers, whose overall business is growing faster than the company’s own. The vast majority of retail sales (about 90%) are still made in regular stores.
Some time ago, an antitrust investigation against Amazon was also launched in the European Union. They suspect that the internet giant may be using data from various independent retailers placing their goods on the site for their own needs. That is, Amazon can collect all data about sellers and their sales, and this is illegal because it violates the competition rules of the EU. And if it turns out that this is the case, the internet giant may be fined more than 10% of its turnover.
