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FTC reportedly finalizing its biggest Amazon antitrust case yet



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The moment Amazon feared when FTC Chair Lina Khan was appointed may soon arrive: Bloomberg reports that the agency is putting the final touches on its most substantial antitrust case against the tech giant, and could file suit in the next few weeks.
According to documents viewed by Bloomberg and sources familiar, the upcoming suit will allege that Amazon systematically disadvantages merchants who don’t use certain “optional” services like “Fulfilled by Amazon.” If the FTC can show that Amazon is maliciously manipulating a market it has something like monopoly power in, it could make the case that the company needs to be broken up or restructured.
To do so is not easy, however: Amazon grew fat under the doctrine that essentially, if consumers aren’t directly affected, even something that looks, walks and talks like a monopoly isn’t one. Khan famously challenged this doctrine in an extensive law review article that marked her as …

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