The European Union is planning on filing formal antitrust charges against Amazon over its treatment of third-party sellers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The EU has been building its case and circulating a draft of the charge sheet for a couple of months and could officially file the charges as early as next week or the week after, the report added.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, Amazon said it would make an “appropriate” executive available to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee to testify about allegations related to how the company uses third-party sellers’ data.
The panel had called on chief executive Jeff Bezos to testify. Amazon’s blog late on Friday did not commit to a specific person or consideration for who could eventually testify.
“We have been working with the Committee in good faith for nearly a year to provide answers and information, and we remain prepared to make the appropriate Amazon executive available to the Committee to address these issues,” Amazon said in the blog post.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the online retailer used data from its third-party sellers to create competing products.
© Thomson Reuters 2020