Amazon's Japanese offices have been raided by antitrust regulators. The raid was confirmed to have occurred earlier this week by a spokeswoman for Japan's Fair Trade Commission, saying that Amazon Japan had forced retailers on its site to set their prices lower in order to undercut rival ecommerce companies. The Japanese antimonopoly act makes it illegal for a company to control or limit the business activities of a company that it has a business relationship with. Expert anti-monopoly lawyer, Nobuyoshi Suzuki, has said that it could lead to the company being sued for compensation by effected retailers. Amazon also faced antitrust regulators last year, when the EU opened an investigation into whether it used its market power to force e-book publishers to sign harmful agreements.
