Germany’s antitrust watchdog, the Federal Cartel Office, is investigating PayPal over alleged anti-competitive practices, including restricting price competition and obstructing competitors.
According to a Bloomberg report, the antitrust watchdog is investigating PayPal’s user terms, which prevent businesses from lowering prices if their clients use other payment providers. It has also been alleged that the payments giant prohibits sellers from making it easy for customers to use other payment services.
“We will now examine what market power PayPal has and to what extent online retailers are dependent on offering PayPal as a payment method,” Andreas Mundt, the head of the Federal Cartel Office, said. “If businesses are prevented from taking into account the costs of payment methods, new payment methods can fare worse in price and quality competition or not even get into the market.”
The antitrust regulator also has ongoing probes against Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
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