Amazon antitrust lawsuit filed by DC attorney general thrown out in court

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

According to a report by The New York Times, an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon was thrown out on Friday.

DC Superior Court Judge Hiram Puig-Lugo granted Amazon's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which accuses the e-commerce giant of anticompetitive behavior by preventing third-party sellers from offering lower prices for their products on other platforms, including their own websites. The records viewed by the NYT didn't show why the complaint was dismissed.

We believe that the Superior Court did not consider the full scope of the anticompetitive agreements, the detailed allegations in the complaint, and the recent decision of a federal court to allow a nearly identical lawsuit in this case.

The class action complaint against Amazon is almost identical to the one against it, and it claims the company pressures sellers into selling products for an equal or lower price than what they offer elsewhere. Seattle District Judge Richard A. Jones denied a part of Amazon's motion to dismiss the complaint.

The lawsuit was first filed in May of 2021. It alleges that Amazon's restrictive policies harm consumers by forcing sellers to raise their prices on Amazon and other online platforms. Both lawsuits claim that the same restrictions apply to sellers under the Fair Pricing Policy that Amazon quietly withdrew in 2019.

We are considering our legal options and we will continue fighting to develop reasoned antitrust jurisprudence in our local courts and to hold Amazon accountable for using its concentrated power to unfairly tilt the playing field in its favor.