According to the Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt), cited by Reuters, the US-based e-commerce giant agreed to change the part of its Business Services Agreement that applies to merchants using its platform. In particular, the changes, which will take effect in 30 days, would apply not only to Germany, Amazon's second-largest market after the United States, but also to sites in Britain, France, Italy and Spain, as well as "in America and Asia", according to Reuters.
The Federal Cartel Office chief said Wednesday in a statement that the German watchdog was dropping its seven-month investigation into unfair policies by Amazon.
"We have achieved far-reaching improvements for retailers on Amazon's marketplaces [...] We are dropping our investigation", Mundt said in a statement, cited by Reuters.
In turn, Amazon said that the changes to its Business Solutions Agreement would clarify the rights and responsibilities of selling partners that account for 58 percent of the physical merchandise sales on its platform.
"We’ll continue working hard, investing heavily, and inventing new tools and services to help our selling partners around the world reach new customers and grow their business", the US-based e-commerce giant said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Andreas Mundt said last year that his agency had received numerous complaints from sellers about Amazon’s business practices and Bundeskartellamt probed unfair liability provisions in Amazon's terms of service, non-transparent termination of sellers’ accounts and payment delays.
In February, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority launched an investigation into the activities of Amazon on suspicion of violations of Austrian and European antitrust laws.
