Germany's Federal Cartel Office says it has opened a proceeding against Amazon over antitrust risks and possible anti-competitive practices
Germany's Federal Cartel Office (FCO) is seeking to make swift use of a new competition tool to target big tech — announcing today that it's opened a proceeding against ecommerce giant Amazon.
Context & Ripple Effects
This proceeding converts years of groundwork into action: the Federal Cartel Office first probed Amazon's "double role" as retailer and host back in 2018, then launched a separate inquiry into its leverage over third-party traders in 2020 alongside a joint probe with Apple over "brandgating". What is new here is the tool, not the target — Germany's updated competition law lets the FCO move against dominant digital companies before abuse is conclusively proven.
First-order effects
- Amazon's German marketplace operations now sit under a standing regulatory threat: the FCO can impose binding conduct rules on how it treats independent sellers without waiting for a full abuse finding.
- Third-party retailers selling on Amazon.de gain a state-backed counterweight to the platform's terms, pricing pressure, and self-preferencing practices.
Second-order effects
- The move pressures other gatekeepers: weeks later the same office opened an App Store investigation into Apple, showing Amazon was the first domino rather than a unique case.
- Hybrid retail-marketplace models face a compliance fork — separating first-party retail from marketplace hosting becomes a live strategic option Amazon may need to weigh in Germany specifically.
Third-order effects
- If national regulators keep using fast-moving instruments like this one, platform governance fragments along jurisdictional lines ahead of any unified EU framework — with Germany positioning itself as the most aggressive enforcer against US tech gatekeepers.
The trend: Germany's antitrust authority is shifting from slow, evidence-heavy abuse cases toward pre-emptive regulation of dominant platforms, with Amazon and Apple as its test cases.