California Attorney General Rob Bonta has decided to share the homework, revealing a 16-page, "largely unredacted" document that allegedly shows how Amazon schemed to make shopping everywhere else more expensive. The state, which originally filed the lawsuit in 2022, submitted this request for a preliminary injunction to the Supreme Court in February, hoping to stop the behavior while the legal wheels grind.
The document lays out a three-part alleged scheme involving Amazon, its vendors, and supposed competitors like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Chewy, and Home Depot. The core accusation is that Amazon worked to raise other retailers' prices ahead of its own Prime Day event, or collaborated with vendors to ensure items available at a discount elsewhere suddenly went out of stock.
Two particularly vivid examples from the filing stand out. In one, Amazon sent Levi's examples of lower prices on Walmart.com. The response from Levi's was a masterclass in corporate cooperation: "I talked to Walmart and they have partnered with us to... take Easy Khaki Classic fit back up to ladder SPP price, $29.99 immediately."
In another, Amazon allegedly asked vendors like Scotts and Hanes to "look into" raising prices on competing websites. For Scotts, a maker of lawn and garden products, Amazon specifically cited its self-created Prime Day as a reason, directing the vendor to "reach out to the retailer that we are price matching to and have them raise their prices, even if it is just for the 3 days leading up to [Prime Day]." In the Hanes example, Amazon sent links to lower prices on Target.com and Walmart.com, and Hanes confirmed it had "reached out to Target and Walmart to have the prices increased."
"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," Bonta stated. He told the New York Times, "You don't see price fixing so explicitly and egregiously in writing like this." Amazon, perhaps busy looking into something else, did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.