Amazon Y Manzana they face a new antitrust class action lawsuit for alleged collusion to inflate the prices of iPhone and iPad in the US market. According to the news agency Reutersthe proposed class action lawsuit in federal court in Seattle opposed a settlement that went into effect in January 2019, under which Apple gave Amazon discounts of up to 10% on its productsin exchange for Amazon allowing only seven of the 600 resellers to remain on its platform.
The demand it alleges that the move has led the company founded by Jeff Bezos to become the dominant reseller of two of Apple’s main products on the marketplace. While Amazon raised prices more than 10%, Manzana stabilized the prices it charged through its retail stores. With this measure, discounts of up to 20%, which were once popular, ended, the agency reports Reuters.
The lawsuit filed covers residents of the United States who purchased such items since January 2019 and look for unspecified triple damageas well as restitution and the end of “group boycott” of companies. “Erecting barriers to entry to keep out competitors and raising prices after their removal is precisely the type of conduct Congress enacted antitrust laws for”points out the complaint.
The claim was filed by Hagens Berman lawyersa legal firm that already sued Apple in the past, reaching a refund of 400 million dollars (384.63 million euros) to buyers of electronic books. In this case, they accused Apple of working with five major e-book publishers to raise prices. US District Judge Denise Cote in New York ruled that the technology company had violated antitrust law.
Also last September Amazon faced a unfair competition claim. The state of California accused the e-commerce giant of abusing its position of market power by signing restrictive agreements with companies that sell on its platform.
The news comes as both companies face changes within their labor structures. On the one hand, Amazon it is planning lay off approximately 10,000 workers starting this week. This would be the biggest cut in company history and would represent about 3% of Amazon’s corporate employees and less than 1% of its global workforce of more than 1.5 million. A few weeks ago, the company also publicly reported that it had decided pause net hires for the next few months due to economic uncertainty. While, Apple faces Black Friday with low sales and accumulated stock. The company is seeing the need to reduce the prices of the iPhone 14 if it wants to get rid of the large volume of inventory it currently has.