{"id":271281,"date":"2026-04-16T19:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/271281\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T19:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:57:07","slug":"newly-unsealed-records-reveal-amazons-price-fixing-tactics-california-attorney-general-claims-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/271281\/","title":{"rendered":"Newly unsealed records reveal Amazon\u2019s price-fixing tactics, California attorney general claims | Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of previously redacted records reveal how Amazon<\/a> has pressured independent sellers using its platform into raising their prices on the sites of competitors like Walmart and Target, so that Amazon can appear to have lower prices, California authorities allege.<\/p>\n

The global conglomerate became concerned even if a competitor was selling an item for as little as a penny less, according to one segment of the newly unredacted evidence.<\/p>\n

The documents \u2013 which have never previously been reported on \u2013 include internal emails, deposition testimony and confidential corporate presentations that the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, obtained as part of a civil case his office launched in 2022 accusing<\/a> Amazon of large-scale price-fixing.<\/p>\n

The Guardian obtained and reviewed the cache of evidence, which has been filed in San Francisco county superior court but has not yet become publicly available. Within the documents, lawyers for the state of California have unmasked key details, paragraphs and sometimes whole pages that had previously been blacked out. A judge permitted some redactions to remain at Amazon\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Bonta said the newly unveiled evidence reinforced his office\u2019s claims that Amazon\u2019s actions \u201cunlawfully punishes sellers whose products are sold at lower prices by other online retailers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially while consumers face an affordability crisis, there is no room for illegal practices that impede competition and raise prices,\u201d Bonta said. \u201cCalifornia looks forward to our trial in January 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazon has called the claims in the lawsuit \u201centirely false and misguided\u201d.<\/p>\n

For years, the state alleges, Amazon has used automated tools to track how independent vendors on its platform price their goods on competitor sites, then leveraged its dominant position in e-commerce to ensure that those prices do not fall below those on Amazon, even though Amazon often charges vendors far more in fees.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s Buy Box.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s lawsuit claims that Amazon punishes vendors that dare to offer discounts on their own sites or competitor sites like Walmart, suppressing their sales on Amazon by taking away the vendors\u2019 access to critical features, like its site\u2019s \u201cBuy Box\u201d \u2013 the panel on the right side of the site where customers see buttons like \u201cadd to cart\u201d and \u201cbuy now\u201d.<\/p>\n

In one previously redacted deposition, marked \u201chighly confidential\u201d, Mayer Handler, owner of a clothing company called Leveret, testified that he received an email in October 2022 from Amazon notifying him that one of his products was \u201cno longer eligible to be a featured offer\u201d through Amazon\u2019s Buy Box.<\/p>\n

The tech giant, he testified, had suppressed the item, a tiger-themed, toddler\u2019s pajama set, because his company was selling it for $19.99 on Amazon, a single cent higher than what his company was offering it for on Walmart.<\/p>\n

Document.<\/p>\n

double quotation markA. That Amazon — the price on Amazon was higher than the price was on Walmart.
Q. And how much higher?
A. One penny.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Handler testified, his company \u201cchanged pricing on Walmart to match or exceed Amazon\u2019s price\u201d or changed the item\u2019s product code to try to throw off Amazon\u2019s price tracking system.<\/p>\n

Document.<\/p>\n

double quotation markWe changed pricing on Walmart to match or exceed Amazon\u2019s price. Or we changed the code.<\/p>\n

In response to a question from the Guardian, Handler criticized Amazon for tracking prices across the internet and \u201cshadow\u201d blocking his company\u2019s products \u2013 tactics which he said were depriving consumers of \u201clower prices\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe that\u2019s capitalism,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOr that\u2019s a monopoly causing price hikes on the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another unsealed deposition, Terry Esbenshade, a Pennsylvania garden store supplier, testified in October 2024 that whenever his products lost Amazon\u2019s Buy Box because of lower prices elsewhere on the internet, his sales on Amazon would plummet by about 80%. This financial reality forced him to try and raise his products\u2019 prices with other retailers elsewhere, he said.<\/p>\n

In one instance, Esbenshade testified, he discovered that one of his company\u2019s better-selling patio tables had \u201cbecome suppressed\u201d on Amazon.<\/p>\n

Esbenshade wasn\u2019t sure why, he recalled, until someone at Amazon suggested he look at Wayfair, another online retailer that happened to be selling his patio table below Amazon\u2019s price.<\/p>\n

The businessman went online and set up a new minimum advertised price for the table on Wayfair to ensure it was higher than Amazon\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that raised the price up, and, voila, my product came back\u201d on Amazon, he said, thanks to the reinstatement of the Buy Box.<\/p>\n

Amazon has argued<\/a> that its practices actually promote, incentivize and reward competition. The company said<\/a> it works \u201cto ensure its customers see offers with low, competitive prices\u201d and provide \u201cthe best possible\u201d customer experience for online shoppers.<\/p>\n

The company also denied that it had ever tried to shield itself from competition through its agreements with independent sellers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon denies that the intent or effect of any agreement it has entered into with third-party sellers or vendors is to insulate itself from price competition\u201d or \u201centrench any position of \u2018dominance\u2019\u201d, the company asserted in an answer to the state\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n

But Bonta\u2019s office said that the newly unredacted exhibits show Amazon employees have proactively sought to undermine market competition and were aware of the effects of their actions on prices.<\/p>\n

In one example, the state alleged, an Amazon engineer described the company\u2019s use of Buy Box suppression and an internal program, known as SC-FOD, to undermine vendors\u2019 willingness to sell products on Temu, a competing e-commerce site.<\/p>\n

A note from an Amazon engineer that California officials say describes the methods used to discourage a vendor from working with a competitor. The Guardian redacted the employee\u2019s name and email address.<\/p>\n

double quotation markmap them, FOD them, and they move out of Temu
But ye hua hai toh its a huge success for us
\ud83d\ude04<\/p>\n

In another example, a senior Amazon employee sent an internal email in August 2023 describing how the company\u2019s Buy Box suppressions were causing an Indiana-based home goods and furniture seller to regularly raise his prices on other sites.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen this happens, they claim they search for the lower price, and when they find it, they raise it to match the price on Amazon,\u201d the employee wrote, which was read aloud in a confidential deposition last year.<\/p>\n

Amazon, which recently overtook Walmart to become the world\u2019s largest company by revenue<\/a>, is America\u2019s No 1 online retailer by a huge margin.<\/p>\n

By the end of 2022, Amazon accounted<\/a> for nearly half of US e-commerce retail spending, compared with less than 8% for Walmart, its nearest competitor, according to numbers compiled by PYMTS.com<\/a>, an analytics firm. In the third quarter of 2025, Amazon took in 56% of online retail spending compared to Walmart\u2019s 9.6%, PYMTS found<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amazon did not immediately provide answers to questions from the Guardian ahead of publication. The Guardian will update this article when it receives a response.<\/p>\n

The trial in the California attorney general\u2019s lawsuit against Amazon is currently scheduled to begin on 19 January 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of previously redacted records reveal how Amazon has pressured independent sellers using its platform into raising their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-271281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}