Amazon sellers fight against "low price spiral" and end up in lawsuit!

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged three men with manipulating the prices of DVDs and Blu-ray discs through Amazon .

The three men , Morris Sutton, Emmanuel Hourizadeh and Raymond Nouvahian, are accused of conspiring with others to raise and maintain prices on DVDs and Blu-ray discs they sold on Amazon , according to court documents in Knoxville, Tennessee.

It is understood that this price manipulation conspiracy began at least in November 2017 and lasted until October 29, 2019. They communicated verbally, by email, text message, and phone, and reached an agreement to suppress and eliminate competition in the sale of DVDs and Blu-ray discs on Amazon by manipulating prices . During this period, they made at least $1.1 million.

In fact, this kind of price manipulation is not the first time that it has happened in the United States. As early as 2015, an Amazon seller was caught manipulating the price of a poster.

The poster price manipulation scheme was more sophisticated than the latest case, in which the sellers wrote computer code to instruct algorithm-based software to coordinate their respective price changes. The case was also the first criminal prosecution in the United States specifically targeting e-commerce conspiracy.

Price manipulation like this violates U.S. criminal antitrust laws under the Sherman Act, and those involved in the offense are subject to up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million individual criminal fine. If either amount is higher than the statutory maximum fine, the maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain made by the offender or twice the loss suffered by the victim.

A person from the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division said: "As more and more American consumers turn to online shopping, it is critical to prevent, detect and prosecute criminal activities that hinder fair and open competition in the online market. The Antitrust Division will continue to be committed to prosecuting any anti-competitive behavior that may occur."

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Illegal