Why You Paid $29.99 for Those Levi's, Not $25.47: Amazon Price-Fixing Scheme Exposed

Published: Tuesday, April 21, 2026 at 6:30 pm

California's top law enforcement official on Monday released a legal filing packed with evidence that Amazon is leveraging its dominance of the online retail market to artificially drive up prices for a range of goods, fueling a nationwide affordability crisis while padding its profits.The filing was first submitted to the San Francisco Superior Court in February as part of California Attorney General Rob Bonta's broader legal effort to halt what he described as Amazon's "illegal price-fixing scheme." At the time, the filing was heavily redacted, obscuring specific examples of Amazon conspiring with vendors and competing retailers to drive up prices for apparel, pet treats, fertilizer, and other items. California's case against Amazon is set to go to trial next year.The evidence we've uncovered is clear as day: Amazon is working to make your life more unaffordable," Bonta said in a statement. "The company is price-fixing, colluding with vendors and other retailers to raise costs for Americans beyond what the market requiresbeyond what is fair.""Amid a crisis of affordability," Bonta added, "Amazon is illegally working to rake in profits by making sure consumers have nowhere else to turn to for lower prices. Well see them in court."The filing identifies three specific tactics Amazon uses to fix prices"breaking the price match," "increasing the competitor retail price," and "removing the product"and offers concrete examples, backed by email evidence, of the company deploying each method.In one instance from 2021, Amazon alerted Levis that Walmart.com had some of the clothing company's pants listed at a price of $25.47-$26.99which Amazon indicated was too low for its liking. At Amazon's request, Levi's connected with Walmart, which agreed to price one of the identified products at $29.99. Amazon then matched that higher price for Levi's Easy Khaki Classic fit on its platform, locking in the cost increase for online shoppers."This should make your blood boil. Amazon is using its market power to coerce major retailers to hike prices," said Lee Hepner, senior counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. "It is pouring kerosene on an affordability crisis. Forcing price hikes to preserve market share is illegal monopoly maintenance, clear as day."Bonta's filing also details a case in which Amazon, the vendor GlobalOne, and the pet supplies company Chewy agreed to fix prices on more than 10 pet treat products.As Bonta's office summarized:The plan was written in an email between Amazon and its vendor, GlobalOne. For its part, Amazon would raise GlobalOnes Canine Naturals pet treat prices to get Chewy to follow, then GlobalOne would reach out to Chewy to let them know that Amazon was increasing the pricing and would ask that [Chewy] follow. In other words, if Chewy agreed, Amazon would increase its retail pricing for the Canine Naturals pet treats and Chewy would match the price increase. The plan materialized. Amazon told GlobalOne that the pricematch override was in place, and to let Chewy know to update [pricing] immediately. That same day, GlobalOne confirmed the ones that went up on Amazon immediately went up on Chewy [happy face emoji] Overall this looks like its working! The result of Amazon, Chewy and GlobalOnes price fixing agreement was to increase the retail prices of over ten Canine Naturals pet treat products on Amazon and Chewy."The examples above are not outliers and are not exhaustive," Bonta's office stressed in a statement. "They are illustrative of countless interactionsspanning years and product linesin which Amazon, vendors, and Amazons competitors agree to increase and fix the prices of products on other retail websites. As Amazon told one vendor explicitly: 'I am very determined to help you hunt the disrupters in the market.'"Amazon has been coordinating with vendors and major retailers including Target, Walmart, Chewy, and Home Depot to raise prices across the market.This is a widespread scheme spanning years across markets and its illegal.Were fighting to stop it. pic.twitter.com/p77N6P0kV3 Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) April 20, 2026 Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said Bonta's filing shows "blatant price-fixing" by Amazon that is "almost certainly the tip of a much bigger price-fixing operation."In a piece published at Washington Monthly on the same day that Bonta's largely unredacted filing was released, Mitchell highlighted a Biden-era federal complaint accusing Amazon of using "sophisticated AI-driven pricing systems that draw on torrents of real-time data" to raise prices. (That case, backed by 17 states, is set to go to trial next March.)"Heres how it allegedly worked: Amazons anti-discounting algorithm immediately matched competitors price changes to the penny, but never undercut them," Mitchell wrote. "When a rival offered a discount, Amazons algorithm matched it; when rivals raised prices, Amazons algorithm followed. This denied competing retailers a crucial tactic for luring customers from Amazon. If other retailers could never offer lower prices, Amazons roughly 200 million paying subscribers had little reason to shop elsewhere.""These allegations point to a novel form of monopoly power: The ability of a dominant platform to use algorithms to lift prices across an entire market," Mitchell added.

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