This archive report was first published on 4 September 2019.
Published on September 4, 2019, a French court has fined Amazon 4 million euros ($4.4 million) for unfair terms of use on its online marketplace.
According to Loic Tanguy, a director at the DGCCRF, France's consumer and anti-fraud watchdog, the fine is a record for a suit involving abusive commercial clauses.
The agency filed its lawsuit in 2017 after a two-year investigation into third-party vendor platforms, which found several clauses potentially unfair to the 10,000 small and midsize French companies selling on Amazon.
The clauses in question gave Amazon the power to modify contracts at a moment's notice, demand shorter delivery times, or block deliveries while demanding additional corporate information from vendors.
Amazon was the only online vendor who refused to modify its terms of use after the investigation, Tanguy said.
Despite the obvious advantages for companies using Amazon, Tanguy emphasized that the 'asymmetrical balance of power' must not force vendors to accept unfair terms of use.
In its ruling, the court found the contested clauses 'manifestly unbalanced' and ordered Amazon to change them within six months.
Amazon's marketplace generated around 60 per cent of the company's five billion euros of total French sales, the court said.
Amazon France responded to the ruling, stating that the court had ruled on a limited number of clauses, most of which were already updated earlier this year.
