The Amazon antitrust lawsuit is a federal case, Federal Trade Commission v. Amazon.com Inc., filed in September 2023 by the FTC and 17 state attorneys general, accusing Amazon of illegally maintaining monopoly power in online retail through anti-discounting punishments, coerced use of its own fulfillment service, a secret pricing algorithm, and degraded search results. It is pending before Judge John H. Chun in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, with a bench trial now scheduled for February 9, 2027. A separate private class action, De Coster v. Amazon.com Inc., has been certified on behalf of roughly 288 million American consumers and is set for trial October 5, 2026.
What the FTC Accuses Amazon of Doing
The FTC voted 3–0 to authorize the suit, filed September 26, 2023. The states joining are New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.1FTC. FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power New York Attorney General Letitia James led the state coalition.2New York Attorney General. Attorney General James, FTC, and Multistate Coalition Sue Amazon
The complaint alleges Amazon holds monopoly power in two markets: the “online superstore” where consumers shop, and the “online marketplace services” market where sellers pay to reach those consumers. The agency describes several practices that lock that power in place.3FTC. FTC Complaint, Revised Redactions
Punishing Sellers Who Offer Lower Prices Elsewhere
According to the complaint, Amazon runs automated web crawlers that scan competing sites for lower prices. When a seller offers a product for less somewhere else, Amazon retaliates: it strips the seller of “Buy Box” placement (the default purchase button through which roughly 98% of Amazon sales occur), buries the listing in search, hides the price from shoppers, or removes the product entirely. The FTC argues the effect is to turn Amazon into a de facto price floor for the wider internet, because sellers keep prices high everywhere to avoid the penalty.3FTC. FTC Complaint, Revised Redactions
Project Nessie
The complaint describes a secret pricing algorithm called Project Nessie, first deployed in 2014. It identified products where competitors were likely to follow an Amazon price increase; Amazon would raise the price, and if rivals matched, keep the higher price in place. The FTC says Nessie generated more than $1 billion in excess profit, and internal documents cited in the complaint call it “an incredible success.”3FTC. FTC Complaint, Revised Redactions
Amazon toggled Nessie on and off at least eight times between 2015 and 2019, according to the complaint, turning it off during periods of heightened regulatory scrutiny and reactivating it when the company believed no one was watching. Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle has called Nessie an “old” pricing tool that was “scrapped” because it did not function as intended, though the FTC alleges the company considered experiments to improve the algorithm as recently as 2020 and 2021.4FIPA. Amazon Used an Algorithm to Essentially Raise Prices on Other Sites, the FTC Says
Tying Prime Eligibility to Amazon’s Own Fulfillment Service
The FTC alleges Amazon conditions Prime eligibility on sellers using Fulfillment by Amazon, the company’s warehousing and shipping service. Because Prime listings reach the vast majority of Amazon shoppers, sellers have little practical choice but to pay for FBA. That, the complaint says, prevents independent fulfillment providers from reaching the scale to compete, and drives up costs that consumers ultimately pay.1FTC. FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power
Degraded Search and Pay-to-Play Ads
The complaint also alleges Amazon has been replacing useful organic search results with paid ads, including what internal documents describe as “junk ads” barely relevant to a shopper’s query. Internal communications cited by the FTC acknowledge that the shift makes it harder for “high quality, helpful organic content to win over barely relevant sponsored content.” The cumulative fees sellers pay for advertising, referrals, and fulfillment now approach 50% of their total revenues, costs the FTC says are passed through to shoppers.3FTC. FTC Complaint, Revised Redactions
What the Court Has Already Decided
Amazon moved to dismiss, arguing among other things that the FTC lacked authority to sue for a permanent injunction in federal court without first opening an administrative proceeding, and that the Ninth Circuit’s 1982 FTC v. H. N. Singer Inc. precedent had been effectively overruled by the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in AMG Capital Management v. FTC. Judge Chun rejected that reading, finding AMG‘s limits on monetary relief did not disturb the FTC’s ability to seek injunctions.5Courthouse News Service. Amazon Loses Effort to Dodge Federal Antitrust Charges
On September 30, 2024, Judge Chun issued a split decision on the merits. He allowed the central federal claims to proceed, finding the FTC had “plausibly alleged that the challenged conduct is anticompetitive.” The court upheld claims tied to anti-discounting practices, Buy Box suppression, the tying of Prime to FBA, and Project Nessie, and found the allegations sufficient to “allege anticompetitive intent and purpose” as to Amazon’s facilitation of tacit pricing coordination. Several state-level claims were dismissed, including Pennsylvania common law claims and certain state consumer protection claims. The court also ordered that liability and remedies be handled in separate proceedings. Plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint on October 31, 2024.6Tech Policy Press. FTC v. Amazon.com
When the Case Goes to Trial and What the FTC Can Win
The case was originally set for trial in October 2026. The FTC sought a delay, citing what it described as Amazon’s obstruction of discovery, including the alleged destruction of more than two years of internal communications through Signal’s disappearing-messages feature between June 2019 and early 2022.4FIPA. Amazon Used an Algorithm to Essentially Raise Prices on Other Sites, the FTC Says Amazon opposed the delay and blamed the FTC for a burdensome discovery process, but lost its bid to hold the October 2026 date. An amended scheduling order sets the bench trial to begin February 9, 2027.7MLex. Amazon Loses Bid to Keep October 2026 Trial Date for US FTC Antitrust Case
The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction to stop the alleged conduct. It cannot recover monetary damages in this case: the Supreme Court held in AMG Capital Management v. FTC (2021) that the relevant provision of the FTC Act authorizes injunctive relief only.5Courthouse News Service. Amazon Loses Effort to Dodge Federal Antitrust Charges Because liability and remedies were separated, even a plaintiffs’ win on liability would trigger a second phase to determine what the injunction actually does.
The Consumer Class Action That Covers Roughly 288 Million Shoppers
Consumers looking for direct compensation should look at De Coster v. Amazon.com Inc. (No. 2:21-cv-00693), a private class action seeking damages for shoppers who allegedly overpaid because of Amazon’s anti-discounting policies, including its former Price Parity Clause (enforced until 2019) and its current Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy. The theory: Amazon penalizes sellers who undercut its prices elsewhere, price competition is suppressed across the internet, and consumers pay more.8Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro. Amazon.com Antitrust – De Coster
On August 6, 2025, Judge Chun certified a class defined as all persons in the United States who purchased five or more new, physical goods from third-party sellers on Amazon’s marketplace on or after May 26, 2017. The class encompasses roughly 288 million consumers, one of the largest ever certified in U.S. history. The court accepted the analysis of MIT economist Dr. Parag Pathak that Amazon’s anti-discounting policies produce class-wide harm through inflated referral fees passed to consumers in every transaction. Amazon sought interlocutory review at the Ninth Circuit and was denied in September 2025.8Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro. Amazon.com Antitrust – De Coster9Law360. De Coster et al. v. Amazon.com Inc.
Trial is set for October 5, 2026, with a pretrial conference on September 21, 2026. Court-ordered class notice was going out to class members as of June 2026. There is no settlement.8Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro. Amazon.com Antitrust – De Coster
The Seller Case and the State Cases
A parallel case for third-party sellers, Frame-Wilson v. Amazon.com Inc. (No. 2:20-cv-00424), argues that Amazon’s Fair Pricing Policy and its predecessor Price Parity Provision operate as anticompetitive “most favored nation” agreements forcing sellers to keep prices level across platforms, under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Amazon’s motion to dismiss was denied November 19, 2024. Plaintiffs moved for class certification on February 20, 2025, and filed their reply in November 2025; as of mid-2026 the court had not ruled. In April 2026, Judge Chun denied Amazon’s motion to exclude Dr. Pathak’s testimony.10A&O Shearman. Frame-Wilson v. Amazon.com Inc.11Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro. Amazon Antitrust – Frame-Wilson
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a state antitrust suit on September 15, 2022, under California’s Unfair Competition Law and Cartwright Act. In April 2026, the San Francisco Superior Court denied Amazon’s motion for summary judgment, finding “too many disputed material facts” over whether Amazon’s featured-offer policy is anticompetitive. Trial is scheduled for January 19, 2027, with a preliminary injunction hearing set for July 2026.12California Office of the Attorney General. Attorney General Bonta Delivers Victory Against Amazon in Ongoing Price Case
The District of Columbia’s suit, alleging violations of the D.C. Antitrust Act, was initially dismissed but reinstated on August 22, 2024, when the D.C. Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for further proceedings.13District of Columbia Court of Appeals. District of Columbia v. Amazon – Reversed
Amazon’s Response and the FTC Leadership Change
Amazon maintains its marketplace policies are procompetitive and designed to keep prices competitive and the customer experience positive. In the California case, the company filed sixteen affirmative defenses and a cross-complaint seeking a judicial declaration that its Business Solutions Agreement, Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy, Featured Offer eligibility rules, and related practices are lawful.14California Superior Court. Amazon Cross-Complaint, California Superior Court
The federal case was authorized under former FTC Chair Lina Khan, who departed in early 2025 when the new presidential administration took office. Her successor, Chair Andrew Ferguson, has publicly committed to continuing the litigation. “We’ve got cases involving Amazon and Meta, I care deeply about these cases,” Ferguson said in his first interview. “I intend to continue prosecuting them to continue holding Big Tech’s feet to the fire.”15Fox Business. New FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson Previews Plans for Agency
Amazon is now defending the federal FTC case, the De Coster consumer class action, the Frame-Wilson seller class action, the California suit, and the reinstated D.C. suit at the same time. None has settled.