: Amazon offers to change marketplace rules in the U.K. to address concerns from the competition authority

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN has offered to change its own marketplace rules regarding third-party sellers in the U.K. to address concerns raised by the Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, the regulator said in a statement. The CMA “considers that these commitments – if accepted – will ensure third-party sellers’ product offers have a fair chance of being prominently displayed to customers in the ‘Buy Box’ on a product page when they are competing against Amazon’s own product offers,” said the statement. Amazon has further committed to not use data that it gets from third-party sellers to give itself an unfair competitive advantage. The CMA launched a probe of Amazon’s practices in July of 2022, to review concerns that Amazon was abusing its position as the U.K.’s leading online retail platform by giving its own retail business an advantage over competing sellers that use Amazon Marketplace, or to sellers that use its warehousing and delivery services, rather than competing logistics businesses. The CMA’s preliminary view is that Amazon’s proposal will satisfy its concerns. It has now opened a consultation period that will end on Sept 1. The stock was down 1.8% premarket, but has gained 54% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX has gained 19%.

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