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The Responsible Online Commerce Coalition (ROCC) is a recently formed trade association for businesses that rely on Amazon and other large online commerce platforms to reach their customers.
The ROCC will work 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. The association’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. 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.
The ROCC 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.
The association’s focus is primarily on the US, the European Union, and the UK, but these issues are global in scope. The 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 US, as well as a partner at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP in Washington DC, 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 favour. 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, added: “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.”
