Hundreds of newly unsealed court documents reveal how Amazon has systematically pressured independent sellers into raising prices on rival platforms like Walmart and Target, ensuring the e-commerce giant appears to offer the lowest prices without actually competing on price.
The redacted records, obtained by California's attorney general as part of a 2022 antitrust lawsuit, include internal emails, depositions, and corporate presentations that show Amazon became concerned when competitors undercut its prices by even a single penny. The documents, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, were previously withheld but have now been unmasked by state lawyers with court approval.
"Especially while consumers face an affordability crisis, there is no room for illegal practices that impede competition and raise prices," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. "The newly unveiled evidence reinforced our office's claims that Amazon's actions unlawfully punish sellers whose products are sold at lower prices by other online retailers."
Amazon flatly denies the allegations, calling them "entirely false and misguidedâ and arguing that its practices actually promote competition and deliver low prices to customers.
How the System Works
According to the state's case, Amazon uses automated tools to monitor how independent vendors price their goods across the internet. The company then leverages its dominant market position to ensure those prices don't fall below Amazon's listings, despite charging vendors substantially higher fees than competitors do.
The enforcement mechanism is Amazon's "Buy Box," a prominent panel on product pages where customers see the "add to cart" and "buy now" buttons. When vendors try to offer lower prices elsewhere, Amazon suppresses their products by removing Buy Box eligibility, decimating their sales on the platform.
Mayer Handler, owner of a clothing company called Leveret, testified in a confidential deposition that Amazon removed his tiger-themed toddler pajamas from the Buy Box because his company was selling them for $19.99 on Amazon, one cent higher than the price on Walmart. Handler said his company eventually changed its Walmart pricing to match or exceed Amazon's price, or altered product codes to confuse Amazon's price-tracking system.
"Maybe that's capitalism," Handler wrote to the Guardian. "Or that's a monopoly causing price hikes on the consumer."
Terry Esbenshade, a Pennsylvania garden supply vendor, testified that losing the Buy Box triggered an 80% sales drop on Amazon. When he discovered one of his patio tables had been suppressed because Wayfair was selling it cheaper, he set a minimum advertised price on Wayfair to match Amazon's. Within days, his product's Buy Box was restored.
"So that raised the price up, and, voila, my product came back," Esbenshade testified.
An Amazon engineer described using Buy Box suppression and an internal program called SC-FOD to push sellers away from competing platforms. "Map them, FOD them, and they move out," the engineer wrote in an internal message about a competitor site, calling the tactic a "huge success."
A senior Amazon employee confirmed the pattern in an August 2023 email, noting that when sellers searched for lower prices on other sites and found them, they raised those prices to match Amazon's, effectively neutralizing price competition.
Amazon, which recently surpassed Walmart to become the world's largest company by revenue, dominates U.S. e-commerce. By the end of 2022, the company controlled nearly 50% of online retail spending compared to Walmart's 8%. In the third quarter of 2025, Amazon captured 56% of online retail spending versus Walmart's 9.6%.
The trial is scheduled to begin January 19, 2027. Amazon did not respond to questions before publication.
Author James Rodriguez: "These depositions read like a how-to manual for crushing seller competition, and Amazon's defense that it's just keeping prices low doesn't hold water when the mechanism literally prevents lower prices elsewhere."
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