Amazon Fined EUR 4 Million in France Over Competition Issues: Report

Online retail giant Amazon was fined EUR 4 million ($4.5 million) by the Paris commercial court for introducing abusive clauses in its contracts with third-party vendors, French website Nextinpact reported on Tuesday. The decision by the Paris commercial court was not immediately available.

"The court ruled on a limited number of clauses, most of which were already updated earlier this year," Amazon said in a written comment sent to Reuters.

"As always, we remain focused on developing the best possible service for our customers and sales partners."

The French consumer fraud watchdog at the finance ministry, which had taken the matter to court, did not return a request for comment.

Also this week, Amazon India announced it plans to replace single-use plastic in its packaging by June 2020, the latest move by an e-commerce giant to weed out plastic use from the country's cities and towns that frequently rank among the world's most polluted.

Last week, Walmart's local e-commerce unit Flipkart said it had cut down on similar kinds of plastic use by 25 percent and planned to move entirely to recycled plastic consumption in its own supply chain by March 2021.

Amazon India will roll out paper packing material across the country by the end of 2019, its vice president of customer fulfilment, Akhil Saxena, said on a call.

Amazon has often been criticised for using too much plastic and thermocol to wrap its billions of packages of shipments.

© Thomson Reuters 2019