Amazon won a dismissal of an antitrust lawsuit that the District of Columbia had leveled at it, saying the eCommerce giant had blocked sellers from offering better deals elsewhere, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday (March 18).
D.C. Superior Judge Hiram Puig-Lugo tossed the suit.
Amazon said its pricing restrictions in contracts were legal and common in the retail industry, also arguing that the lawsuit could hurt consumers, saying that it has a “pro-consumer” approach by offering competitive pricing.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said the office was considering appealing this decision.
“We believe that the Superior Court got this wrong, and its oral ruling did not seem to consider the detailed allegations in the complaint, the full scope of the anticompetitive agreements, the extensive briefing and a recent decision of a federal court to allow a nearly identical lawsuit to move forward,” a spokeswoman for the D.C. attorney general said Friday.
The spokeswoman added that the fight would continue to develop “reasoned antitrust jurisprudence” in the local courts, and to hold Amazon accountable “for using its concentrated power to unfairly tilt the playing field in its favor,” the spokeswoman said.
Read more: EU Gives Amazon the OK for the $6.5B MGM Deal
It’s an important part of Amazon’s quest to compete with streaming rivals like Netflix or Disney+.
The company has said this deal wouldn’t reduce competition, which was one of the biggest concerns for the deal, because the two companies don’t really overlap in content production.
The deal, announced last year, would see Amazon taking control of MGM’s film and TV catalog, including content like the James Bond movies.
According to reports, Amazon has effectively given the U.S. FTC a deadline of this month, and if the FTC doesn’t challenge it, Amazon will be able to go ahead with the deal.
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