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French court hands Amazon €90,000-per-day fine over contracts

French authorities on Wednesday slapped a €90,000-per-day fine on e-commerce giant Amazon until it removes abusive clauses in its contracts with businesses using its platform to sell their goods.

The US giant Amazon logo is pictured on the opening day of a new distribution center in Augny, near Metz, eastern France
(Photo: Sebastien Bozon / AFP)

The anti-fraud Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes (DGCCRF) service said the online sales giant’s contracts with third-party sellers who use its Amazon.fr website contain “unbalanced” clauses.

“The company Amazon Services Europe did not comply completely with an injunction it was served and it is now subject to a fine of €90,000 per day of delay” in applying the changes, the DGCCRF said in a statement.

It also urged the platform to conform with European rules on equity and transparency for firms using online platforms.

Amazon said the order would harm consumers.

“The changes imposed by the DGCCRF will stop us from effectively protecting consumers and permit bad actors to set excessive prices or spam our clients with commercial offers,” the e-commerce giant said in a statement.

“We will comply with the DGCCRF’s decision but we absolutely do not understand it and we are challenging it in court,” responded the e-commerce giant in a statement.

Amazon said the clauses that the DGCCRF has ordered removed had, for example “prevented the appearance of exorbitant prices for mask and hydroalcoholic gel during the pandemic”.

In 2019, Amazon was fined €4 million for “manifestly unbalanced” contract clauses with third-party sellers on its site in a case brought by the DGCCRF.

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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