Price fixing lawsuit against Amazon, publishers refiled in federal court

In the US, a class action lawsuit accusing Amazon and the Big Five publishers of colluding to fix ebook prices has been re-filed in federal court, reports Publishers Weekly.

In September this year a New York federal judge dismissed the price-fixing claims against Amazon and the publishers, following a magistrate’s recommendation that the case be dismissed due to lack of evidence. As previously reported by Books+Publishing, in January 2021 law firm Hagens Berman filed the class action suit against Amazon for allegedly colluding with Big Five publishers for anti-competitive behaviour in the ebook market.

The refiled complaint, which has been amended, accuses Amazon and Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House of a hub-and-spoke agreement to eliminate price competition from the ebook market, and alleges Amazon is a monopoly that has used its market dominance to ‘coerce’ publishers into ‘entering into contractual provisions that foreclose competition on price or product availability’.

Category: International news