Apple and Amazon have won a ruling dismissing a consumer antitrust lawsuit in Seattle federal court that accused them of conspiring to inflate prices of iPhones and iPads sold on Amazon’s platform, reports Reuters.
In her ruling on Monday U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson faulted the plaintiffs’ lawyers for dragging out the litigation after the original plaintiff sought to withdraw from the 2022 case. However, the plaintiffs can submit an amended suit.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in 2022, accused Apple and Amazon of seeking to eliminate third-party Apple resellers on Amazon Marketplace in a scheme to stifle competition, and maintain premium pricing for Apple products. The class action alleged an “unlawful horizontal agreement between Apple and Amazon to eliminate or at least severely reduce the competitive threat posed by third-party merchants,” which attorneys say violates federal antitrust laws and has cost consumers.
The lawsuit said the parties’ illegal agreement brought the number of third-party sellers of Apple products on Amazon Marketplace from roughly 600 to just seven sellers – a loss of 98%, and by doing so, Amazon, which was formerly a marginal seller of Apple products, became the dominant seller of Apple products on Amazon Marketplace.
The lawsuit centered around an agreement made between Apple and Amazon that took effect at the beginning of 2019, the existence of which neither defendant denies. Hagen’s German claims that the agreement permitted Apple to limit the number of resellers operating on Amazon’s marketplace, and it offered Amazon in return a discounted wholesale price for a steady stream of iPhones and iPads, allowing it to reap the benefits of limited competition on its own reseller arena.
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