Disadvantageous contractual conditions. The Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF) confirmed this Wednesday the reproaches demanding the Amazon giant pay a coercive fine of 3.3 million euros for a “delay in the implementation” of its contracts with merchants who sell products on its platform Amazon.fr.
The DGCCRF recalls in its press release that it had ordered Amazon last December “to modify as soon as possible, and no later than March 22, 2022, certain clauses of its contractual conditions applicable to third-party sellers present on its Amazon. fr platform”. It noted “a significant imbalance of these contractual conditions in favor of Amazon.”
This precautionary measure was accompanied by a coercive fine of 90,000 euros per day of delay “applicable in the event of non-compliance by the Amazon company as of March 22, 2022”, it specifies, but “in the event of late compliance on April 28 2022, the DGCCRF requests the payment of 3.33 million euros to Amazon, under sanction.
A fine of 4 million euros in 2019
In 2019, the company was sentenced by the Paris Commercial Court to a fine of 4 million euros “following a summons from the Minister of Economy”, the court censored “several unbalanced clauses in the contract that Amazon imposed on companies that use your online marketplace. ”, also recalls the Repression of Fraud.
It points out that a new investigation, launched in 2020 by the DGCCRF’s National Investigation Service (SNE) into the contractual conditions imposed by Amazon on third-party sellers, “had led to the discovery of new irregularities.”
“As a result of these findings”, the DGCCRF indicates that it has decided “to make use, for the first time, of the new faculty of reprimand provided for in the Commercial Code”, a legal tool that allows setting amounts of dissuasive sanctions, up to 1% of global turnover, “depending on the seriousness of the disturbance of the economic public order observed”.
Amazon disagrees with the DGCCRF
Requested Tuesday night following the publication of an article by echoes In reporting on this case, a spokesperson for Amazon France had assured that the DGCCRF had “acknowledged” that the changes made in April by the platform were “in accordance with its court order.”
Source: BFM TV
