(14 Jan 2021) Amazon is accused of fixing the price of e-books sold on the e-commerce site through anticompetitive agreements with the nation’s top five publishers, according to a complaint filed Thursday.
The class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York alleges that Amazon and the publishers entered into price fixing agreements in 2015, allowing the publishers to increase their e-book prices by up to 30 percent while protecting Amazon from price competition from other e-book retailers.
The lawsuit also alleges Amazon violated antitrust and consumer-protection laws through the agreements with the publishers known as the “Big Five,” made up of Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin-Random House and Simon & Schuster.
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