Here’s how Amazon’s price fixing allegedly drove up prices everywhere

California Attorney General Rob Bonta made the revelations on Monday Evidence of alleged price gouging by Amazon. The state filed a request with the Supreme Court in February for a preliminary injunction to stop Amazon’s conduct during the lawsuit Originally introduced in 2022 The company now continues to make that 16-page document available, “largely unredacted.” It explains how Amazon planned to raise prices for other retailers before Prime Day, or worked with its sellers to ensure that items available at a discount elsewhere suddenly became out of stock and unavailable at a lower price.

Bonta says this document explains how the scheme works with Amazon, sellers and its supposed competitors, such as Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Chewy and Home Depot, in three ways:

Two examples from the document (Available in full below) Jump out, like this one Amazon sent Levi examples of price drops Walmart.coma response from Levi’s confirms, “I have spoken to Walmart and they have partnered with us to… raise the price of the Easy Khaki Classic to the SPP ladder price, which is $29.99, immediately.”

Another example Bonta alleges is a message showing Amazon asking sellers like Scotts and Hanes to “consider” raising prices on competing websites. In Scotts’ example, he specifically cites Amazon’s self-created Prime Day event as a reason to raise the price by a few days.

In one such case, Amazon directed seller Scotts (a manufacturer of lawn/garden products) to “contact the retailer we price match with and ask them to raise their prices, even if it is only for 3 days before (Prime Day).” In another example, Amazon sent Hanes (an apparel seller) links to Target.com and Walmart.com that showed lower prices than they were on Amazon, and Hanes confirmed that it “reached out to Target and Walmart to increase prices.”

“My office has uncovered evidence that Amazon has intimidated sellers to raise the prices of their products sold in other stores, or secure the removal of these products altogether, to ensure that Amazon is the cheapest place consumers can find products,” Bonta said in a statement. In an interview with New York Times“You don’t see price fixing so open and crude in writing like this,” he said. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment Edge.