Amazon’s Cross-Complaint Insufficient to Grant It Declaratory Relief, Says Calif.

Amazon’s May 30 antitrust cross-complaint against California “is vague and conclusory,” and the state can’t “fully anticipate all defenses that may be applicable to this action,” the state said in its answer Wednesday (docket CGC-22-601826) in San Francisco County Superior Court. California expressly reserves the right to assert any defenses “identified through information learned in the course of this litigation,” because discovery is “ongoing,” it added.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) filed a heavily redacted complaint in September 2022, alleging Amazon "makes consumers think they are getting the lowest prices possible,” when they can’t get the low prices that would prevail in a “freely competitive market" (see 2210130034). That’s because Amazon "has coerced and induced its third-party sellers and wholesale suppliers to enter into anticompetitive agreements on price,” Bonta alleged.

Amazon’s cross-complaint seeks declaratory judgments that its selling and pricing policies are lawful. But Amazon “fails to plead facts sufficient to support its claims for declaratory relief,” California argued. Amazon’s cross-complaint “overlaps entirely” with numerous of its affirmative defenses, it continued. That renders the requested declaratory relief “redundant,” and serves only “to create duplicative, inefficient and unwarranted litigation.”

Amazon seeks to “broadly limit” future enforcement actions the California AG and state DOJ may bring “by seeking relief," the state's answer said. That type of declaration “violates public policy and California law.”

California filed its complaint challenging Amazon’s violations of the Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition Law. But because Amazon’s cross-complaint “interferes with a valid action” to enforce the law, it’s barred “as against public policy, as defined by controlling law and statute,” California's answer said.

Amazon’s claims are barred, in whole or in part, “to the extent that the remedies sought are contrary to public policy or are otherwise unauthorized,” said California’s answer. Statutes prohibiting injunctive relief against the government “also protect against the requested declaratory relief that is injunctive in nature,” it said. Amazon “may not circumvent the prohibition on injunctions by seeking a declaration that would have the same effect,” it said.