Businesses Team Up To Unveil New Coalition Aimed At Ensuring Fair Play in Online Commerce

The Responsible Online Commerce Coalition (ROCC) is a trade association for businesses that rely on Amazon and other large online commerce platforms to reach their customers. Founded in March 2023 by leading U.S. and European antitrust experts, ROCC is working to ensure fair play for all businesses that operate in online commerce—from the very smallest third-party sellers to the world’s largest household brands.

ROCC’s central aim is to ensure a level playing field where businesses that offer the best products can prosper because consumers can easily find and buy their genuine products for the best price. Our members appreciate the important role that Amazon and other online marketplaces play in the modern economy and want consumers and businesses to enjoy the substantial benefits that flow from free and fair online commerce now and well into the future.  

We will promote key principles relating to the fair and non-discriminatory treatment of businesses that rely on online commerce to reach their customers. These principles include competitive pricing for seller commissions and fees, brand integrity (including protection from counterfeit products), the freedom to offer discounts and lower prices across different sales channels, the ability to choose rather than be forced to use a given platform’s services, access to and control over proprietary and competitively sensitive data, and the provision of objective search results.

Our focus is primarily on the U.S., the European Union, and the UK, but these issues are global in scope. We will work constructively with policymakers, legislators, competition authorities and courts. Our objective is to make balanced and evidence-based proposals that will help educate all stakeholders and improve the quality of debate at a time when multiple jurisdictions are working to establish the rules of the road for digital markets.

Amanda Lewis, ROCC Co-Founder and Director of Competition Policy for the U.S., as well as a partner at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP in Washington D.C., said:

“Amazon is a vital gateway for both large and small businesses to reach their customers. It is critical that Amazon plays by fair competition rules, rather than rig the game in its favor. Consumers and the economy both win if Amazon is forced to take its heavy thumb off the scale so that businesses can freely compete for customers on the true merits of their products. All we are asking for is a level playing field that is free from rules that distort competition. We are working with policymakers and regulators in the United States and around the world to return the power of choice to consumers through open and fair markets in the digital economy.”

Professor Damien Geradin, ROCC Co-Founder and Director of Competition Policy for Europe, as well as founding partner of Geradin Partners in Brussels and London, said:

“The competition law spotlight is moving onto Amazon in Europe, where the Digital Markets Act is being implemented and the UK’s Digital Markets Unit will soon be given wide-ranging powers to open up digital ecosystems. Businesses that rely on Amazon need to have a voice in the writing and interpreting of the new rules of the road.”

For further information, please visit www.theroccoalition.com.

NOTES

ROCC team members include:

• Amanda Lewis is a partner at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP in Washington D.C., who previously worked at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and served as a Counsel-Detailee to the Antitrust Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. In this role, she worked extensively on the Subcommittee’s Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets, for which she led the portion of the investigation related to Amazon and helped draft legislation aimed at reining in the Big Tech gatekeepers’ monopoly power. At Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, Amanda’s practice includes advising businesses on antitrust policy and enforcement matters as well as representing businesses as plaintiffs or third parties in antitrust investigations and litigation.  

• Damien Geradin is the founding partner of Geradin Partners, a boutique competition law firm with offices in Brussels and London. He has been involved some of the highest profile investigations and lawsuits in the tech and antitrust sector with a focus on digital platforms. Damien is also an academic. Over the past 25 years, he has taught in leading law schools in the EU and the United States, including Columbia, Harvard, the University of Michigan, and Yale. He is the editor of the Journal of Competition Law & Economics and the author/co-author of over 150 books and articles.

• Tom Smith is a partner at Geradin Partners in London where he advises businesses on competition law and regulatory matters. Before joining the firm, he was Legal Director at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Tom led the legal team on the UK’s Digital Markets Taskforce, set up by the Government to advise it on the new Digital Markets Unit regime for “digital gatekeepers” such as Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon.  He also directed the CMA’s influential online platforms and digital advertising market study, the CMA’s work on setting up the Digital Markets Unit, and its antitrust enforcement cases in the tech sector.