California is stepping up its legal fight against Amazon, accusing the tech giant of running a broad price fixing scheme that quietly drove up online prices while preserving Amazon’s reputation as the cheapest place to shop. In a new filing, Attorney General Rob Bonta is asking a San Francisco Court for a preliminary injunction to immediately halt the alleged conduct as the state’s antitrust case advances toward a January 2027 trial.
How the Alleged Scheme Worked
According to the motion, discovery in California’s 2022 lawsuit has produced countless interactions in which Amazon, its vendors, and rival retailers allegedly agreed to raise prices or pull lower priced listings from competing sites. Investigators say that, time and again, Amazon contacted vendors after spotting lower prices elsewhere and, under threat of dire consequences, pushed them either to raise prices on competitors’ websites, temporarily remove cheaper offers, or delist products entirely so that Amazon could maintain higher price points without losing sales.
There are three main patterns in the motion. First, when Amazon and a rival were price matching in ways that pushed prices down, either Amazon or the competitor, working through a shared vendor, would agree to increase the retail price or make the product temporarily unavailable, allowing the other to match a new, higher market price and increase what consumers paid. Second, when a competing retailer discounted a product, that rival would later raise its price at Amazon’s request, communicated via the vendor, so that Amazon could follow the increase and again raise the price shoppers paid. Third, in cases where a rival offered a lower price than Amazon, vendors allegedly removed the product from the competing site, eliminating the cheaper option so Amazon could raise its own price without fear of being undercut.
Bonta’s Sharp Criticism of Amazon
In a strongly worded statement, Attorney General Bonta said, “My office has uncovered evidence that Amazon bullied vendors to hike up the price of their products sold at other shops, or secured the removal of these products altogether, to ensure Amazon was the cheapest place consumers could find products.”
In other words, while consumers face a crisis of affordability, Amazon blatantly worked to ensure that consumers could not find cheaper products out in the marketplace, all the while raking in unlawful profits from Americans who genuinely thought they were getting the best deal,” said Bonta.
Why Amazon’s Power Matters
The filing emphasizes that Amazon’s market power amplifies the harm. The company has close to 200 million Prime members in the United States, and by its own account, 92% of consumers say they are more likely to buy from Amazon than other e commerce sites, while 56% report visiting the platform daily or a few times a week. Roughly 75% of consumers say they check prices and reviews on Amazon before making a purchase, making it the first stop for product research and a must have distribution channel for merchants, even though overall selling costs there often exceed those on rival platforms. Sellers quoted in the filing describe Amazon as unavoidable, with one saying, We have nowhere else to go and Amazon knows it, and another stating, There is no viable alternative to Amazon for my business.
Policies Already Under Fire
Beyond the newly alleged price fixing patterns, California reiterates earlier claims that Amazon has long used contractual and algorithmic tools to suppress lower prices elsewhere. Merchants, the complaint says, must agree not to offer lower prices on competing sites like Walmart, Target, eBay, or even on their own direct to consumer websites, or face sanctions such as loss of the Buy Box, downgraded listings, demands for payments to make Amazon whole when it price matches, or even suspension from the marketplace. The state argues that this web of restraints prevents genuine price competition and stabilizes online prices above what a competitive market would produce, not because Amazon is more efficient, but because it is breaking the law.
What California Wants the Court To Do
In its motion for a preliminary injunction, California asks the San Francisco Superior Court to bar Amazon from engaging in explicit price fixing agreements with vendors and competitors, from communicating with vendors about other retailers’ pricing, and from using vendors as intermediaries to coordinate price increases or product removals with rival sites or to demand compensation when Amazon matches lower prices elsewhere. The state also seeks broader relief in the underlying lawsuit, including an order permanently stopping Amazon’s alleged anticompetitive behavior and recovering damages for California consumers and the state economy, with trial expected to begin next January.
The case signals that California regulators are prepared to treat behind the scenes pressure on vendors and cross platform pricing tactics as potential price fixing, especially when used by a dominant platform that has become the default starting point for most online shoppers.
