EU charges Amazon with anti-competitive action, opens second probe

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators on Tuesday charged U.S. retail giant Amazon with distorting competition in online retail markets and also opened a second investigation into its e-commerce business practices.

"The Commission takes issue with Amazon systematically relying on non-public business data of independent sellers who sell on its marketplace, to the benefit of Amazon's own retail business, which directly competes with those third party sellers," the European Commission said in a statement.

It also launched a second investigation into the possible preferential treatment of Amazon's own retail offers and those of marketplace sellers that use Amazon's logistics and delivery services.

Amazon disagreed with the EU charge.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Edmund Blair)