Unsealed order in Amazon antitrust suit lets entire FTC case proceed, dismisses some state claims

A week after a federal judge in Seattle issued a sealed order on Amazon’s motion to dismiss the landmark U.S. antitrust lawsuit against the company, the mystery is over — and the vast majority of the case is going forward.

According to a public version of the ruling, unsealed Monday morning, U.S. District Judge John H. Chun allowed the majority of the allegations to proceed. That includes all of the Federal Trade Commission’s claims, such as those related to Fulfillment by Amazon, the Buy Box on Amazon.com, and the “Project Nessie” pricing algorithm.

At this stage of litigation, plaintiffs such as the FTC and the states benefit from an assumption that their claims are true for purposes of assessing their legal validity.

Last week, before the order was unsealed, some of the initial coverage called it a “partial victory” for Amazon, but as it turns out, the portion of the ruling in which the company was victorious was relatively slim.

The areas where the judge granted Amazon’s motion to dismiss were related to specific aspects of state claims, including elements of allegations brought by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Maryland. Eighteen states and one territory, Puerto Rico, joined the FTC in the lawsuit against Amazon.

Here is the full statement from Amazon spokesman Tim Doyle on the ruling:

“The ruling at this early stage requires the court to assume all facts alleged in the complaint are true. They are not. To take just one example, the FTC falsely claims that consumers only consider Walmart.com, Target.com, Amazon, and eBay when shopping for household products from a variety of categories, but that’s not consistent with how consumers actually shop Moving forward the FTC will have to prove its claims in court, and we’re confident those claims will not hold up when the FTC has to prove them with evidence. The truth is that Amazon’s practices are good for competition, consumers, and the small- and medium-sized businesses that sell in our store, while the FTC’s approach would make shopping more difficult and costly.”

And here is the statement from FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar:

“We are pleased with the court’s decision and look forward to moving this case forward.  The ways Amazon illegally maintains its monopolies and the harm they cause—including suppressed competition and higher prices for shoppers and sellers—will be on full display at trial. This case ultimately seeks to pry loose Amazon’s monopolistic control and restore competition.” 

The complaint, originally filed in September 2023, accuses Amazon of leveraging its monopoly power using “anticompetitive and unfair strategies” that “stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing.”

Here is the text of the order on Amazon’s motion to dismiss:

FTC v. Amazon — Order on Motion to Dismiss by GeekWire on Scribd