California’s attorney general Rob Bonta, who sued Amazon in 2022 for stifling competition, has long argued that the price fix was in — but on Monday he said he has the receipts. 

While that suit is due to go to trial in January, Bonta’s office released unsealed documents on Monday that illustrate how Amazon worked with Levi’s and Hanes to raise prices at Walmart and Target, setting a floor in the marketplace.  

“The evidence we’ve uncovered is clear as day: Amazon is working to make your life more unaffordable,” Bonta said in a statement, referring to correspondence uncovered during the discovery phase of the case. 

“The company is price fixing, colluding with vendors and other retailers to raise costs for Americans beyond what the market requires — beyond what is fair,” he said. “Amid a crisis of affordability, Amazon is illegally working to rake in profits by making sure consumers have nowhere else to turn to for lower prices. We’ll see them in court.”

An Amazon spokesperson shot back that: “The attorney general’s motion is a transparent attempt to distract from the weakness of its case, coming more than three years after filing its complaint and based on supposedly ‘new’ evidence it has had for years. Amazon is consistently identified as America’s lowest-priced online retailer, and we’re proud of the low prices customers find when shopping in our store. Amazon looks forward to responding in court at the appropriate time.”

The judge in the case also previously expressed some skepticism, stating in court that the examples of price fixing were dated and raising other concerns about the motion.

The vendors and Target did not immediately respond to requests for comment from WWD. But a Walmart spokesperson said: “We do not comment on litigation in which we are not a party. We will always work hard on behalf of our customers to keep our prices low.”

Bonta is looking for a preliminary injunction, asking the San Francisco Superior Court to stop Amazon from leaning on vendors with unfair pricing tactics. 

“When faced with a competitor offering a lower price, Amazon does not compete fairly,” the unsealed court filing said. “Instead, Amazon insulates itself from competition by strong-arming its vendors into raising prices offered by its competitors, often with the explicit or implicit agreement of the competing retailer.

“These are not general discussions about price — these are explicit agreements to increase retail prices, all so Amazon can maintain its profit margins at the expense of consumers… This price fixing scheme typically begins with Amazon demanding that vendors ‘fix,’ ‘correct,’ ‘increase,’ ‘raise,’ or ‘look into’ the prices of products on other retailers’ websites.  More euphemistically, Amazon instructs vendors to ‘manage’ their ‘channels’ — i.e., other retailers — to increase retail prices.”

The court filing said requests are backed up by threats to restrict advertising and promotion, demands for financial compensation and the “the removal of vendors’ products from Amazon through the Can’t Realize a Profit — ‘CRaP’ — mechanism.” 

California’s filing explained, “When Amazon CRaPs a product, it shuts off purchase orders, ultimately making it impossible for customers to buy a product.” 

In one example, the filing said Amazon, Levi’s and Walmart agreed to fix prices on the brand’s Easy Khaki Classic pants. 

“To start, Amazon sent Levi’s links to two ‘styles of concern’ due to lower prices on Walmart.com, saying it ‘hop[ed] these can get resolved over the next few days,” the filing said. “The next day, Levi’s reported that ‘I talked to Walmart and they have partnered with us to . . . take Easy Khaki Classic fit back up to ladder SPP price, $29.99 immediately’ and provided links to show the increased Walmart price.”

Amazon then confirmed that it had matched the higher price. 

“The result of this price fixing agreement was that Walmart and Amazon both increased the price for a specific product to a specific level, as opposed to the lower price that Walmart had been offering,” the filing said. 

Separately, the filing says Amazon sent Hanes links from both Target and Walmart, which had lower prices than Amazon was listing. “Hanes confirmed that it ‘reached out to Target and Walmart to have the prices increased,’” the filing said. 

The hearing for the preliminary injunction is set for July 23.