[U: AMZN Response] Opinion: The FTC And State AGs Are Likely To Prevail, In The Antitrust Suit Against... Amazon. You Heard It Here First.

Updated on 09.29.2023 @ 4 pm EDT: For whatever it is worth, here are the claims Amazon asserts, as to why the FTC's action is unwise. Notably, this is press spin -- not legal analysis -- and Amazon offers no legal theory to suggest the FTC is wrong on the law, or the facts. Now you know. End, updated portion.

This will serve as a bonus bite, at Amazon, for September. We will have AMZN labor related matters news, early in the new month of October. Count on it.

[This could cost Amazon. . . billions, in damages -- and force the company to democratize its listing and fufillment services, much the way the dominant telephone company was broken up -- into the "Baby Bells" two generations ago, now.]

For now, we see a strong resurgence in the federal trial courts around the country (consider Martin Shkreli's antitrust loss, just two years ago now), and. . . a willingness to apply the Sherman and Clayton Acts to conduct that (at least previously, under Ronald Reagan, at its zenith) was just. . . largely shrugged off. Here, in Condor's opinion, Amazon is pretty clearly engaging in lawless predatory behavior in a market it plainly has come to. . . dominate. Here's a bit -- and the full complaint at law:

. . .The FTC and states allege Amazon’s anticompetitive conduct occurs in two markets -- the online superstore market that serves shoppers -- and the market for online marketplace services purchased by sellers. These tactics include:

Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible.

Conditioning sellers’ ability to obtain “Prime” eligibility for their products -- a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon -- on sellers using Amazon’s costly fulfillment service, which has made it substantially more expensive for sellers on Amazon to also offer their products on other platforms. This unlawful coercion has in turn limited competitors’ ability to effectively compete against Amazon. . . .

Yes -- we intend to cover it, and cover it. . . closely. One cannot abuse one's dominant position in a given US marketplace, under long standing federal law. So. . . onward, grinning into the warm night.

नमस्ते