European Union opens consumer protection investigation against Amazon

The European Commission announced on Wednesday November 15 that it had opened an investigation into the measures implemented by Amazon to protect consumers, in particular against illegal products. These announcements are part of a crackdown initiated by the European executive against the large platforms, after the entry into force at the end of August of the legislation on digital services.

She asked the e-commerce giant “to provide more information on the measures taken to comply with the risk assessment and mitigation obligations aimed at protecting consumers”. The new legislation requires, among other things, online sales sites to check the identity of sellers before authorizing them on their platform and requires them to block repeat fraudsters.

Fines of up to 6% of turnover

Amazon has until December 6 to “provide the requested information to the Commission”. “Based on Amazon’s response evaluation, [elle] will determine the next steps.”. However, this is a first step in a procedure which could ultimately lead to heavy financial sanctions in the event of proven and prolonged infringements of the regulations. In extreme cases, fines could reach 6% of the global turnover of the groups involved.

Brussels had already opened an investigation at the beginning of November targeting the Chinese online sales site AliExpress concerning the alleged distribution of illegal products, including fake medicines.