EU questioning companies over Amazon copycat products: report

European regulators probing Amazon over antitrust concerns are reportedly asking smaller merchants whether the internet giant has been copying their products and selling them under its own brand.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that EU antitrust enforcers have sent questionnaires to vendors that sell on Amazon’s platform asking if the company has been selling products “identical or very similar” to their own and whether they’ve been hurt by such practices.

Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s competition commissioner, revealed last week that her office had opened a preliminary inquiry into Amazon’s market dominance.

{mosads}

“We are gathering information on the issue and have sent quite a number of questionnaires to market participants in order to understand this issue in full,” Vestager said during a press conference.

She said that her main concern was whether Amazon had an unfair advantage over competing vendors that sell on its platform, noting that the e-commerce giant’s wealth of marketplace data could give it an upper hand.

According to Bloomberg, Vestager’s office has been asking merchants about their correspondence with Amazon and the exact date of when the company may have started selling rival products.