A’zon loses court round

A judge rejected Amazon’s bid to dismiss California’s antitrust lawsuit accusing it of illegally forcing merchants to accept policies that artificially inflate prices.

Judge Ethan Schulman in San Francisco said California sufficiently alleged that Amazon’s policies “have had the anticompetitive effect of raising prices on competing retail marketplaces as well as on third-party sellers’ own websites.”

Amazon on Friday declined to comment on the decision.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused the retailer of threatening to cut off merchants or deny them access to its “Buy Box” — where shoppers can click “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” — if they offered lower prices on rivals such as Costco, eBay, Target and Walmart, and even their own websites.