Amazon Japan cut its own prices, then billed sellers for the difference

From 2018, Amazon Japan ran two practices Japan's Fair Trade Commission began investigating as a possible abuse of superior bargaining position under the Antimonopoly Act. First, when Amazon cut its own resale price on a product to match a cheaper price elsewhere, it charged the difference back to the third-party seller or vendor supplying that product — the seller absorbed a price cut it hadn't agreed to. Second, Amazon introduced a vendor program and billed suppliers a cooperation fee of up to roughly 10% of sales for it.

Under a commitment procedure introduced in Japanese antitrust law in December 2018, Amazon avoided a formal finding of violation by submitting its own remediation plan instead of contesting the case. On 10 September 2020 the JFTC approved that plan: Amazon committed to repay approximately 2 billion yen (about $18.85 million) to roughly 1,400 sellers and vendors and to stop both practices going forward.

The JFTC's own release was explicit that approving the plan was not a determination that Amazon had violated the law — the commitment procedure let Amazon close the investigation by fixing the practice rather than by having a violation proven against it. It was Amazon's second brush with the JFTC over seller terms: a 2017 investigation into price-parity clauses forcing sellers to give Amazon their lowest price had already ended with Amazon deleting the clauses rather than face a ruling.