Internal emails revealed in court and interviews with ex-employees describe how Amazon’s practices drove up prices for competitors like Walmart and Target. Amazon denies price-fixing claims and says it works to lower costs for consumers
The Guardian examined those records, as well as hundreds of pages of deposition testimony of current and former employees of Amazon and supplier companies. Most of the documents and depositions – which were partially unsealed in recent months – have never been publicly reported on.
The California attorney general, Rob Bonta, alleges that Amazon’s tactics have coerced suppliers into raising the prices of their products with its rivals.
In the case of the ice-cream maker, Bonta’s office points to emails that say Amazon temporarily took “down” the supplier’s inventory off its platform – a move that prompted its manufacturer, a firm called Maxi-Matic, to scramble to pull its inventory from Best Buy, eliminating Amazon’s price competition from the electronics retailer.
I’m pretty sure this is illegal: