A federal judge has ordered a class notice (En Español) to be distributed to all class members, informing them of their rights and options in this case, De Coster v. Amazon.Com, Inc. If you are an eligible class member, you will receive the notice from the court-appointed case administrator, Epiq.
What Do I Need to Do?
If you received notice of the lawsuit, you are already a class member and do not need to take any action to ensure your involvement. If you are unsure if you are a class member, or wish to exclude yourself, please visit the settlement website for more information or call the administrator at 1-877-238-1874.
Am I Affected?
The court has defined the class as: “All persons in the United States who, on or after May 26, 2017, purchased five or more new, physical goods from third-party sellers on Amazon’s marketplace.”
There Is No Settlement at This Time
The case is ongoing, and no settlement is available to claim at this time. If a settlement is reached in the future, you will receive a separate notice explaining your options and how to participate.
Your Legal Rights
If you are an eligible class member, you have the right to remain in the class, to request to be excluded from the class or to hire your own lawyer. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or don’t act. These rights and options, and the deadlines to exercise them, are explained in the class notice (En Español). Class members should read the notice carefully.
Questions?
You will find answers to frequently asked questions on the case administrator’s website. Read the FAQ »
Contact Information
If you have further questions that are not answered in the FAQ, contact the case administrator at the information below:
1-877-238-1874
De Coster v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Class Action Administrator
PO Box 5594
Portland, OR 97228-5594
Due to the high volume of inquiries, Hagens Berman is unable to respond to all individually. Please refer to the administrator’s FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions.
An independent investigation by Hagens Berman's legal team indicates that Amazon.com may have violated federal antitrust laws, allegedly causing Amazon customers to pay artificially increased prices for products purchased via Amazon.
Consumers filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon alleging it has driven up prices on its website, and on August 6, 2025, the court certified the largest class in US history, encompassing about 288 million consumers. The certified class includes all US consumers who on or after May 26, 2017, purchased five or more new physical goods from third-party sellers on Amazon.
AMAZON'S ALLEGED PRESSURE ON ITS THIRD-PARTY SELLERS
Amazon operates as a seller, and it opens its marketplace to third-party sellers, so that it can offer end customers an integrated retail site that lists its own retail goods alongside those listed by other merchants. For a fee, Amazon permits third parties to register with Amazon Marketplace to sell products on Amazon.com. This arrangement gives sellers access to millions of buyers and buyers access to millions of sellers via Amazon's controlled platform.
But selling on Amazon comes with certain alleged restrictions. When a seller registers with Amazon Marketplace, it agrees to the terms of the Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement (BSA) and the policies incorporated in that agreement, which establish rules for setting prices on Amazon's platform, attorneys say.
AMAZON'S ALLEGED ANTI-DISCOUNTING POLICY BLOCKS PRICE COMPETITION AND RAISES PRICES ON AMAZON
Plaintiffs allege that, for decades, Amazon has used various pricing rules to prevent third-party sellers from offering lower prices on Amazon’s rivals’ marketplace platforms—which has harmed competition and forced consumers to pay higher prices.
Until 2019, the BSA contained a “Price Parity Clause” that expressly prohibited third-party sellers from listing goods on other online retail platforms at prices lower than their Amazon prices. Although Amazon abandoned this clause in the EU in 2013 due to antitrust proceedings there, Amazon continued to enforce the clause in the US for six more years.
One way Amazon enforced its price parity requirement is through “Buy Box suppression.” The Amazon Buy Box is a button that allows a customer to add a product with one click to their online shopping cart or immediately proceed to check out with “Buy Now.” When there are multiple offers for a single product, Amazon uses an algorithm to choose one offer to display in the Buy Box. Because virtually all purchases on Amazon are made via the Buy Box, winning the Buy Box is essential for third-party sellers to make sales. Using its massive online price monitoring system, Amazon tracks billions of off-Amazon prices per year and punishes its third-party sellers — by removing or disqualifying their offer from the Buy Box — if Amazon detects an off-Amazon price that is even one penny lower than the seller’s Amazon price. To avoid the risk of losing the coveted Buy Box, Amazon third-party sellers refuse to offer lower prices on competing marketplaces, even if competitor marketplaces charge lower selling fees.
Amazon continues to use its Buy Box suppression tactic today, along with other pricing rules including its “Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy” and the “Amazon’s Standards for Brands,” which the lawsuit alleges similarly prevent third-party sellers from offering lower prices on Amazon’s competitors’ sites.
The result, according to the lawsuit, is reduced competition among Amazon and other marketplaces and higher prices paid by consumers. By stifling price competition, Amazon has allegedly suppressed competition regarding the referral fees marketplaces charge sellers, which sellers incorporate into the prices they charge consumers. According to Plaintiffs, Amazon’s anti-discounting policy enables it to charge artificially inflated marketplace fees on every sales transaction, which in turn causes artificially inflated prices. We believe Amazon’s policy violates the antitrust laws and seek to compensate consumers harmed by Amazon’s allegedly anticompetitive conduct.
YOUR CONSUMER RIGHTS
The lawsuit seeks reimbursement for alleged illegal price increases pushed onto consumers. Hagens Berman believes those who may have unknowingly paid high prices for online purchases deserve compensation.
Hagens Berman attorneys allege millions of consumers overpaid for online purchases on Amazon.com because Amazon prevents its third-party sellers from competing on price outside its platform. According to the lawsuit, even when it costs sellers less (e.g., when the seller sells directly to consumers on its own website or at a lower fee on eBay), sellers are allegedly contractually barred or severely penalized from passing on these savings to their customers.
TOP CONSUMER RIGHTS LAW FIRM
Hagens Berman is a nationally renowned plaintiffs’ class-action law firm and has achieved more than $345 billion in settlements for clients and class members in lawsuits against Big Tech, food corporations, automakers and others. Hagens Berman has achieved many record-breaking victories in antitrust matters, and your claim will be handled by attorneys experienced in consumer law.
NO COST TO YOU
In no case will any class member ever be asked to pay any out-of-pocket sum. In the event Hagens Berman or any other firm obtains a settlement that provides benefits to class members, the court will decide a reasonable fee to be awarded to the class's legal team.
CASE TIMELINE
A federal judge has ordered a class notice (En Español) to be distributed to all class members, informing them of their rights and options in this case, De Coster v. Amazon.Com, Inc. If you are an eligible class member, you will receive the notice from the court-appointed case administrator, Epiq.
What Do I Need to Do?
If you received notice of the lawsuit, you are already a class member and do not need to take any action to ensure your involvement. If you are unsure if you are a class member, or wish to exclude yourself, please visit the settlement website for more information or call the administrator at 1-877-238-1874.
Am I Affected?
The court has defined the class as: “All persons in the United States who, on or after May 26, 2017, purchased five or more new, physical goods from third-party sellers on Amazon’s marketplace.”
There Is No Settlement at This Time
The case is ongoing, and no settlement is available to claim at this time. If a settlement is reached in the future, you will receive a separate notice explaining your options and how to participate.
Your Legal Rights
If you are an eligible class member, you have the right to remain in the class, to request to be excluded from the class or to hire your own lawyer. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or don’t act. These rights and options, and the deadlines to exercise them, are explained in the class notice (En Español). Class members should read the notice carefully.
Questions?
You will find answers to frequently asked questions on the case administrator’s website. Read the FAQ »
Contact Information
If you have further questions that are not answered in the FAQ, contact the case administrator at the information below:
1-877-238-1874
De Coster v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Class Action Administrator
PO Box 5594
Portland, OR 97228-5594
Due to the high volume of inquiries, Hagens Berman is unable to respond to all individually. Please refer to the administrator’s FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions.
U.S. District Judge John H. Chun issued an order in De Coster et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc. setting the trial to begin on October 5, 2026, with a pretrial conference scheduled for Sept. 21, 2026. The court directed the parties to meet and confer on a proposed pretrial schedule.
U.S. District Judge John H. Chun granted class certification to the largest class in US history, encompassing about 288 million Americans. The certified class includes all US consumers who on or after May 26, 2017, purchased five or more new physical goods from third-party sellers on Amazon. The 50-page order was originally filed on Aug. 6, 2025, and unsealed Sept. 2, 2025.
On Aug. 8, 2025, U.S. District Judge John H. Chun of the Western District of Washington granted the plaintiffs’ motion to compel Amazon to produce documents regarding antitrust research performed by economists, scholars and think tanks that were either solicited or funded by the company and are central to its legal defense.
The plaintiffs presented evidence that Amazon had communicated with or funded various authors whose work Dr. Loren Hitt, Amazon’s defense expert, cited. Judge Chun noted that the plaintiffs’ discovery requests are relevant to evaluating the weight and credibility of Dr. Hitt’s testimony.
“The impact of academic research relies on its validity and objectivity,” said Steve W. Berman, managing partner for Hagens Berman and co-lead counsel for the consumer class in De Coster. “If Amazon, one of the world’s largest, most influential companies, has been funding academic research to create favorable outcomes in the court of law, the public and academic community deserve to know.”
The ruling applies to De Coster v. Amazon.com, Inc. (No. 2:21-cv-00693), as well as two other related antitrust lawsuits, Frame-Wilson v. Amazon (No. 2:20-cv-00424) and Brown v. Amazon (No. 2:22-cv-00965).
Read the order »
Read the press release »
On Feb. 3, 2025, Washington federal Judge John H. Chun granted in part of plaintiffs' motion to compel the production of documents from Amazon’s privilege logs in the pending cases Brown et al. v. Amazon.com Inc., De Coster et al. v. Amazon.com, and Frame-Wilson et al. v. Amazon.com Inc. As reported by Law360, Amazon had initially provided plaintiffs with privilege logs which included over 132,000 claims of privilege. But after a re-review, Amazon "downgraded" at least 61,000 of those privilege claims. Plaintiffs allege that the underlying problem was that Amazon appeared to have a policy to instruct employees to falsely mark documents as privileged and then those documents got withheld in litigation. Judge Chun ordered Amazon to complete its review of all withheld documents and produce any that cannot clearly demonstrate that the primary purpose of the communication was to seek or provide legal advice, by Feb. 25, 2025.
In a sealed order on Nov. 19, 2024, U.S. District Judge John H. Chun denied Amazon’s motion to dismiss the De Coster et al. v. Amazon.com Inc. and Frame-Wilson et al. v. Amazon.com Inc. lawsuits. This denial allows plaintiffs to continue the fight against the world’s leading online retailer after three failed attempts by Amazon to dismiss the case.
Attorneys will now move forward with proposing redactions to the court by Dec. 2, 2024. Once the order has been unsealed, the document will be accessible here. Please check back for updates.
District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez sided with plaintiffs and ordered Amazon to produce more than a decade of sales data from Germany and the U.K., including historical transactions, sales revenues, shipping charges, commissions and more. The judge’s order dismisses Amazon’s objection that the request was unduly burdensome and not proportionate to the needs of the case. “The production of the requested information will doubtlessly take a significant effort and cost a substantial amount of time and money. But this is a significant, substantial case,” Judge Martinez said.
While the class definition in this case encompasses only U.S. Amazon customers, Judge Martinez wrote that plaintiffs make a “credible and meritorious argument” that UK and German sales data is highly relevant to resolving issues in the case.
U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez allowed the antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com to proceed, denying the online retail giant’s motion to dismiss monopoly claims and claims that its anticompetitive price agreements with third-party sellers caused consumers to pay supracompetitive prices. In his order, Judge Martinez calls some of Amazon’s arguments in the motion “premature,” stating, “That is not how civil litigation is supposed to proceed and will not serve as a basis for dismissal.” The decision found that the class of Amazon customers represented by Hagens Berman in the case “allege a valid injury,” and that the claims in the lawsuit, while complex, are strong enough to plausibly allege antitrust injury.
California attorney general, Rob Bonta, has filed a similar case against Amazon, repeating claims brought by Hagens Berman in its most recent antitrust cases against Amazon. In the state AG’s Sept. 14, 2022 filing, Bonta highlights Amazon’s agreements that thwart competition by agreement with its third-party sellers and by agreement with its suppliers. Since March of 2020, Hagens Berman has trailblazed antitrust cases against Amazon related to consumer price-fixing and monopoly claims: De Coster v. Amazon.com, Inc.; Brown v. Amazon.com, Inc; and Frame-Wilson v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman and attorney for consumers in the four class actions related to the AG’s case, said of the new filing, “We are pleased to see California’s attorney general has joined the fight we started in 2020 over Amazon’s unlawful tactics that have greatly harmed consumers. The proposed class actions we filed paved the way for additional antitrust actions against Amazon, and we believe consumers will reap the rewards of this collective action.”
A federal judge appointed Hagens Berman interim co-lead counsel, stating in the order that “The Court concludes that such appointments will aid in achieving efficiency and economy in what is likely to be an expensive and complicated litigation, and that such appointments will enhance fairness to all parties concerned, as well as the proposed classes.”
Washington, D.C. attorney general, Karl Racine, today filed a similar case against Amazon, repeating claims brought by Hagens Berman in 2020.
Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman and attorney for consumers in the class action said of the new filing, “We are pleased to see D.C.’s attorney general has joined the fight we started in April 2020 over Amazon’s unlawful tactics that have greatly harmed consumers. The proposed class action we filed in 2020 has paved the way for additional antitrust actions against Amazon, and we believe consumers will see the benefit of that.”
