California Attorney General Rob Bonta unredacted hundreds of court records in the state's 2022 price-fixing lawsuit against Amazon, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court. The documents, which include internal emails, deposition testimony, and confidential corporate presentations, allege that Amazon pressured independent sellers to raise their prices on competitor sites such as Walmart and Target to make Amazon appear to have lower prices.

A judge permitted some redactions to remain in the documents at Amazon's request. The trial is scheduled to begin on January 19, 2027.

"Especially while consumers face an affordability crisis, there is no room for illegal practices that impede competition and raise prices," Bonta said in a statement, adding, "California looks forward to our trial in January 2027." Amazon called the claims in the lawsuit "entirely false and misguided."

California alleges that Amazon used automated tools for years to track independent vendors' pricing on competitor sites and leveraged its dominant e-commerce position to prevent prices on competitor sites from falling below Amazon's prices, even though Amazon often charges vendors higher fees. The lawsuit claims that Amazon punishes vendors offering discounts on their own or competitor sites by suppressing their sales on Amazon, including removing their access to the Buy Box.

In October 2022, Mayer Handler, owner of Leveret, received an email from Amazon notifying him that one of his products was no longer eligible to be a featured offer in Amazon's Buy Box. Handler testified that Amazon suppressed his company's tiger-themed toddler pajama set because it was priced at $19.99 on Amazon, one cent higher than its price on Walmart. "We changed pricing on Walmart to match or exceed Amazon's price. Or we changed the code," Handler said. "Maybe that's capitalism. Or that's a monopoly causing price hikes on the consumer."

Terry Esbenshade testified that whenever his products lost Amazon's Buy Box due to lower prices elsewhere, his sales on Amazon would plummet by about 80%, forcing him to raise his products' prices with other retailers. Esbenshade said one of his company's better-selling patio tables had been suppressed on Amazon, and that an Amazon employee suggested he look at Wayfair, where the table was being sold below Amazon's price. He then set a new minimum advertised price for the patio table on Wayfair to ensure it was higher than Amazon's price.

Bonta's office said the newly unredacted exhibits show that Amazon employees proactively sought to undermine market competition and were aware of the effects of their actions on prices. In an August 2023 internal email, a senior Amazon employee described how Buy Box suppressions were causing an Indiana-based home goods and furniture seller to regularly raise his prices on other sites: "When this happens, they claim they search for the lower price, and when they find it, they raise it to match the price on Amazon." California also alleged that an Amazon engineer described in an internal note using Buy Box suppression and an internal program called SC-FOD to undermine vendors' willingness to sell products on Temu, describing the outcome as a huge success for Amazon.