On 5 February 2026, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt, “FCO”) announced a far-reaching prohibition directed at Amazon.com, Inc. (Seattle, USA) and Amazon EU S.à r.l. (Luxembourg) (together “Amazon”). The authority bars Amazon from using mechanisms that influence the prices set by third‑party sellers on the German Amazon Marketplace. Such price-control mechanisms may in future be deployed only in exceptional situations of excessive pricing—and then only under strict parameters and transparency requirements specified by the FCO.
The decision is notable not only for its substantive outcome—curtailing a major platform operator’s levers over seller pricing and visibility—but also for its legal basis and remedial architecture. The FCO relies on the special regime for major digital companies under section 19a(2) of the German Competition Act (Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen, “GWB”), alongside the general dominance provisions of section 19 GWB and Article 102 TFEU. In addition, the authority, for the first time, orders disgorgement of the economic benefit allegedly obtained from the infringement, fixing an initial partial amount of approximately EUR 59 million.
The FCO’s intervention sends a clear signal on how Germany intends to police conflicts of interest inherent to “hybrid platforms”, and how transparency obligations towards business users may be woven into competition law enforcement.
1. Amazon’s Marketplace as a Hybrid Platform and Its Market Position
Amazon operates a broad digital e‑commerce ecosystem. In Germany, amazon.de is not merely an online shop but also a marketplace that enables third‑party sellers (“marketplace sellers”) to sell goods directly to end customers. Amazon is present in two roles on the same user interface: first, as a retailer through its own trading business (“Amazon Retail”); and second, as the operator of the marketplace infrastructure (“Amazon Marketplace”), providing access, listing, and transaction-related services to third‑party sellers in exchange for fees and commissions.
This dual role is at the heart of the competition law concerns. In competition policy terminology, a platform on which the operator both sets the rules of display and ranking and simultaneously competes downstream with the business users is referred to as a “hybrid platform”. The FCO emphasises that this structural feature carries heightened risk, especially where the platform’s market significance makes it difficult for sellers to forego access.
According to the FCO, more than 60% of German online retail turnover in goods is generated via Amazon’s trading platform. The site reportedly lists around 1.5 billion distinct items, with more than 200,000 third‑party sellers active on the marketplace. Third‑party sellers account for approximately 60% of the total trading volume on amazon.de, while Amazon Retail accounts for roughly 40%. In the specific market for marketplace services provided to commercial sellers in Germany, the authority points to a turnover-based market share exceeding 70%.
This market context matters because the measures at issue do not simply affect a seller’s price point in isolation. Rather, they operate through the platform’s most valuable asset: visibility and access to demand. Restrictions on visibility can rapidly translate into severe revenue losses—raising the risk of foreclosure of (often small and medium-sized) sellers and, in the authority’s view, distorting the competitive process both within the marketplace and vis‑à‑vis other e‑commerce channels outside Amazon.
2. The Role of the “Buy Box” and the Economic Meaning of Visibility
A central point in the FCO’s case is the “Buy Box” (referred to in Amazon’s more recent terminology as the “Featured Offer” in the purchase field). On a marketplace with many sellers listing identical or substitutable products, the platform must organise presentation through ranking criteria; otherwise customers would struggle to locate relevant offers. On amazon.de, customers typically search products via keywords, receive lists of items, and then click through to product detail pages. These detail pages usually feature a prominently highlighted purchase area—the Buy Box—displaying one offer selected by Amazon along with price and shipping information, coupled with the “Add to Cart” and “Buy Now” buttons.
The selection of the offer displayed in the Buy Box is determined by an algorithm applying multiple criteria—commonly including price, delivery speed, and other performance indicators. The FCO underlines that the overwhelming share of the platform’s trading volume is realised via the Buy Box. Consequently, exclusion from Buy Box consideration is not a neutral, technical re-ranking; it is a major commercial disadvantage that can push sellers into subordinate placement (e.g., the “Other sellers on Amazon” section) from which only a small portion of sales is typically generated. In some cases, where all offers are disqualified, the product page may show only an “All offers” field rather than a featured merchant offer.
Against this background, any mechanism that ties Buy Box eligibility to Amazon-defined price thresholds can effectively function as a de facto price cap—especially for sellers who depend economically on Amazon as a route to customers.
3. The Price-Control Mechanisms Challenged by the FCO
The FCO’s decision targets Amazon’s use of various “price-control mechanisms” applied to third‑party seller offers. These mechanisms are anchored, according to the investigation, in Amazon’s terms and policies, including the “Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy”. If the mechanisms categorise an offer as too expensive, Amazon either removes it from the marketplace entirely or limits its visibility—most importantly by preventing the offer from being displayed as the Featured Offer/Buy Box.
The authority describes three principal mechanisms:
- “Price error” mechanism leading to deactivation.
The first category concerns prices characterised by Amazon as “price errors”. Using a statistical model developed by Amazon, offers deemed excessively high and therefore potentially erroneous are removed from the marketplace (“deactivated”).
- “Too high price” mechanism leading to Buy Box disqualification.
A second mechanism, also based on a statistical model, categorises prices as “too high”. Rather than removing the offer entirely, Amazon disqualifies it from Buy Box consideration, thereby pushing it into less visible areas of the product page.
- “Not competitive price” mechanism based on external price comparisons.
A third mechanism is applied where products are also offered in other online shops or on other marketplaces. Amazon performs ongoing comparisons with a set of online retailers maintained on an internal list. Based on this, Amazon identifies a “competitive price” corresponding to the lowest currently observed price among those retailers. The FCO notes that Amazon may disregard the shipping costs charged by the external retailer, while requiring the marketplace seller’s price including shipping not to exceed the computed threshold to avoid Buy Box disqualification.
The FCO criticises not only the impact of these mechanisms but also their opacity. In its view, third‑party sellers are not sufficiently informed about how the relevant price ceilings are derived, where those ceilings approximately lie, and under what concrete circumstances their offer will be removed or become only partially visible. The authority further states that Amazon does not disclose—either in its contractual documentation or in explanatory materials—how it decides whether a price triggers deactivation rather than mere disqualification, nor the broad functioning of the statistical models generating these thresholds.
From a practical standpoint, these mechanisms can force sellers to adjust prices to avoid losing visibility. Because sellers bear their own economic risk and are responsible for setting prices, the authority sees this practice as a systematic interference with sellers’ pricing freedom, capable of preventing sellers from covering costs and, in the extreme, leading to their displacement from the platform.
4. Competition Law Assessment under § 19a GWB, § 19 GWB and Article 102 TFEU
The FCO qualifies Amazon’s conduct as an abuse under multiple legal bases.
First, the authority relies on section 19a(2) GWB, the special framework introduced to address large digital ecosystems with “paramount significance across markets”. The FCO had already determined in July 2022 that Amazon meets this threshold. The German Federal Court of Justice confirmed that designation in April 2024. Section 19a GWB is designed to enable faster and more targeted intervention against practices by digital conglomerates that may harm competition even beyond a single narrowly defined market.
Second, the FCO also invokes the general dominance provisions under section 19 GWB and Article 102 TFEU. The authority considers Amazon to hold a dominant position in Germany in the market for marketplace services to commercial sellers, supporting this by reference to shares exceeding 70% (turnover-based) and a leading position by user numbers.
Substantively, the FCO’s concern is that Amazon’s intervention in sellers’ pricing, implemented via visibility sanctions and Buy Box exclusion, can distort the competitive process on the marketplace. Because Amazon competes directly with sellers on the same platform, imposing price ceilings on those sellers—even in the form of de facto caps linked to Buy Box eligibility—raises the risk of Amazon steering the platform-wide price level according to its own preferences. The authority links this to two main competitive harms:
- Restriction and coordination of competition within the marketplace.
By applying frequently changing price thresholds set at Amazon’s discretion and not grounded in objective and verifiable principles, the platform can shape the competitive process between sellers and limit sellers’ ability to pursue independent pricing strategies.
- Foreclosure and reduced contestability beyond Amazon.
The FCO warns that enforcing the lowest observed external online price within Amazon may deter other online retailers outside Amazon from “price attacks”. If any external price cut is rapidly mirrored on Amazon through the marketplace mechanism, the external retailer cannot attract a meaningful customer base with the lower price, reducing the incentive to offer better deals outside Amazon and increasing customer lock‑in.
Importantly, the FCO states that it does not oppose Amazon’s goal of providing low prices to consumers. Rather, it argues that the chosen means—punishing or suppressing seller offers because their prices exceed Amazon-defined thresholds—are not necessary to pursue that goal and are competition‑restrictive. The authority points to less harmful alternatives, such as lowering fees and commissions charged to sellers, thereby creating incentives for sellers to pass on cost reductions to consumers.
5. Remedies and Forward-Looking Conditions: Exceptional Use Only, With Strict Transparency
The decision prohibits Amazon from applying the existing mechanisms in their current form. Looking forward, the FCO does not categorically ban any and all intervention in seller pricing. Instead, it sets a narrow corridor: price-control tools may be used only exceptionally, particularly where a seller’s pricing violates applicable law—explicitly mentioning usurious pricing and “usury-like” price conditions. If Amazon seeks to use a price-control mechanism within this narrow scope, the FCO demands significantly enhanced transparency and procedural clarity.
These obligations intersect with broader platform regulation. The FCO notes that transparency requirements also need to comply with the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation (P2B Regulation), which governs fairness and transparency in platform relationships with business users. In Germany, enforcement of the P2B Regulation lies with the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur). The FCO states that it coordinated its transparency-related aspects with that authority.
6. Disgorgement of Economic Benefit: An Emerging Remedy in Digital Antitrust Enforcement
A particularly noteworthy aspect is the FCO’s resort to disgorgement of the economic benefit gained through the infringement. The authority is applying, for the first time, the revised disgorgement instrument that was introduced in 2023. Under the new regime, the economic advantage can be established via a presumption, reducing the evidentiary burden and facilitating practical application.
In this case, because the FCO views the infringement as ongoing, it initially set only a partial amount—approximately EUR 59 million. The authority stresses that disgorgement is not a fine intended to punish; rather, it aims to neutralise the benefit and ensure that the infringing company cannot retain gains derived from unlawful conduct. It is not entirely clear how the FCO estimated the economic benefit resulting from the price control mechanism. There are basically two possible ways how Amazon could have benefitted from the illicit practices: if the price control mechanism led to higher prices on the platform, Amazon would have benefited from this through its own sales via Amazon Retail. If the price control mechanism led to lower prices, this would have attracted additional traffic to the detriment of other e-commerce platforms. Amazon would then have benefited from a higher volume of commissions paid for sales on its platform.
If upheld and applied more broadly, this tool could become a significant complement to behavioural remedies in digital markets, where conduct remedies may take time to implement and where structural economic gains may accrue during litigation.
7. Outlook: Implications for Platform Governance and Seller Autonomy
The Amazon decision illustrates a sharpened stance on how competition authorities view platform levers that indirectly yet powerfully shape market outcomes. Two themes stand out.
First, the case underscores that on a dominant hybrid platform, “visibility governance” can be functionally equivalent to direct price regulation. Excluding offers from the Buy Box or removing them from the marketplace because they exceed algorithmically determined thresholds can pressure sellers into adopting platform‑preferred pricing, even where the platform claims a consumer‑welfare justification.
Second, transparency is increasingly treated not merely as a matter of consumer information or contract fairness, but as a competition parameter. Where a platform’s internal models and thresholds are opaque, sellers cannot plan, challenge, or adapt effectively, and competitive constraints may be weakened. The FCO’s detailed requirements on how mechanisms must be described, updated, and communicated point to a more proceduralised conception of competition compliance in platform settings.
Moritz Lorenz
Berlin
