Viewers Corner News correspondent in Berlin learned that Germany’s Federal Cartel Office is dropping its seven-month probe against Amazon after the e-commerce giant agreed to amend its Business Services Agreement that applies to the third-party merchants trading on its platform. Although Germany’s anti-trust authority is dropping its investigation against Amazon, the European Union antitrust regulators announced that they would open their own investigation to know if Amazon’s terms of service and use of merchant data violated competition rules. Amazon in response said that the changes in its Business Solutions Agreement which will take effect in 30 days would clarify the rights and responsibilities of selling partners in its platform. According to the cartel office, the changes in Amazon’s new terms of service includes;
-Amazon will comply with European rules governing liability towards its business partners on its European platforms, initially Amazon faced no such liability.
-Amazon shall give 30 days notice and a reason for removing a merchant from its platform, whereas before, it could break off its relationship with or block a seller without warning or explanation.
-Merchants using Amazon’s European marketplaces will be able to take Amazon to court in their own country, before this was only possible in Luxembourg.
-Merchants will also be able to appeal against decisions by Amazon regarding who should bear the costs of returns and refunds.
Other changes cover product descriptions, ease of understanding Amazon’s terms of services and fairer presentation of customer reviews.
Source: Viewers Corner News.