Announcements — 24/07/2025

Professor Stephan’s £2.7bn claim against Amazon certified to proceed to trial in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal 

LONDON, UK 

24 July 2025 

A claim brought by Professor Stephan, a leading competition law professor, against Amazon has been certified to proceed to trial before the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (“CAT”). 

Professor Stephan’s claim, filed on 26 June 2024, alleged that Amazon engaged in anticompetitive conduct to the detriment of a large class of “third-party sellers” in the UK who use the Amazon marketplace to sell goods. 

Professor Stephan’s case is being brought on behalf of more than 200,000 UK third-party sellers on Amazon. Any UK individual or company that used a “professional” selling account to sell products to UK consumers on Amazon between June 2018 and June 2024 will be automatically part of the case, unless they opt-out. If Professor Stephan is successful, sellers will be entitled to compensation from the tech giant. 

Professor Stephan claims that Amazon has engaged in a series of separate, but interrelated, abuse of its dominant position in the supply of e-commerce marketplace services to third-party sellers to reach customers in the UK. Amazon discriminates in favour of its own retail offers versus those of third-party sellers, as well as in favour of its own logistics services (Fulfilment by Amazon or “FBA”) through a combination of conducts. Amazon also unfairly conditions access to Amazon Prime to the use of FBA, and distorts inter-platform competition by making it harder for third party sellers to sell more cheaply on other platforms. As a result of these abuses, third-party sellers have lost sales, faced increased costs and paid higher fees to Amazon for its services than they would have under normal conditions of competition. 

Professor Stephan’s certification application was also heard together with a claim brought by Robert Hammond on behalf of UK consumers, claiming damages for allegedly higher prices they paid for products on the Amazon marketplace. Mr Hammond’s claim has also been certified, partly on the basis that certain overlapping economic issues with Prof Stephan’s claim are to be brought on the basis of Dr Houpis’ methodology. 

This judgment follows a three-day certification hearing which took place from 6-8 May 2025. Geradin Partners instructed Kieron Beal KC (Blackstone Chambers), Laurence Page (4 Pump Court) and Hannah Bernstein (Fountain Court Chambers) for the hearing. In its judgment, the CAT complimented the work of Professor Stephan’s expert economist, Dr George Houpis of Frontier Economics, for preparing a main report that “is comprehensive and very detailed”. 

Professor Stephan said: “Amazon has engaged in a variety of strategies to grow its e-commerce platform, lock sellers into it, prevent the expansion of rivals, and use its market dominance to exploit the hundreds of thousands of sellers in Britain that use its platform. But few of these independent online sellers can operate without using Amazon’s platform – leaving them vulnerable to abuse. I am bringing this litigation to give sellers in the UK the opportunity that they might not otherwise have to be compensated for all those unfair practices, and help ensure fairer treatment of third-party sellers by Amazon in the future.” 

Founding Partner of Geradin Partners, Damien Geradin, said: “Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies, has engaged in manifest abuses of its dominant position as recognized by competition authorities in the EU and the UK. Amazon is also subject to a lawsuit filed by the US Federal Trade Commission for anticompetitive conduct. This class action gives sellers the opportunity to seek redress for the significant harm they have suffered.” 

Further information can be found at: www.amazon3psellerclaim.com. This includes an online form to enable third party sellers to register for updates on the claim, as well as to get in touch with Professor Stephan. 

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Damien Geradin

(+32) 471 17 95 25

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