Amazon Faces Expansive California Antitrust Law in Pricing Suit

Amazon.com Inc. faces rough legal terrain in California as the retail giant battles the state’s lawsuit over its pricing policies and supplier relationships.

The state’s courts are generally more pro-consumer in antitrust litigation than federal courts, and California has a law, the Cartwright Act, that is unfriendly to “vertical restraints” between a company and its suppliers, court watchers say.

Amazon’s “most favored nation policy” allegedly penalizes third-party sellers for charging customers less on competing marketplaces than on Amazon’s site. The policy kept prices artificially high across online marketplaces, California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a suit filed ...