Amazon Consumers Must Arbitrate Pandemic Price Gouging Claims

Amazon.com Inc. consumers must arbitrate claims that it unlawfully increased prices by as much as 1,800% on some items like face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic, a California federal court said.

Alvin Greenberg and two other named plaintiffs opened Amazon accounts before the online retailer added a mandatory arbitration provision to its conditions of use in 2011.

Nonetheless, they later agreed to arbitrate "[a]ny dispute” relating to “any product,” the the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said May 7.

They were given hyperlinked access to the new conditions of use and placed on notice of the ...