Germany Widens Antitrust Probes of Amazon to Loop in Special Abuse Controls

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/15/amazon-antitrust-german-fco-special-abuse-controls/

Germany's antitrust watchdog has moved to widen an existing investigation of Amazon's business in the market in light of special abuse powers it confirmed are applicable to the ecommerce giant's business in the country this summer.

The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) said yesterday it is extending two ongoing "abuse control proceedings" against Amazon to include the application of "the new instrument for more effective oversight over large digital companies" (aka, Section 19a of the GWB; aka it's rebooted competition law) - which is a reference to a 2021 reform of German competition law that targets digital giants found to have so-called "paramount significance for competition across markets" with a proactive antitrust regime that outlaws practices such as self-preferencing, denying interoperability and exclusively bundling their own services to the detriment of rival offerings, among other ex ante prohibitions listed in Section 19b of the law.

The German law is similar to the pan-EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) which was recently adopted by the bloc - and will come into force next year - so the FCO is ahead of the curve here and its application of special abuse controls may offer a little taster of the extended scrutiny that's coming down the pipe across the continent for Big Tech.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.