Packages with the logo of Amazon are transported at a packing station of a redistribution center of Amazon in Horn-Bad Meinberg, western Germany, on Dec. 9, 2024.
Ina Fassbender | Afp | Getty Images
German antitrust regulators warned Amazon on Monday that the company’s pricing mechanisms for third-party sellers could run afoul of competition laws.
The Federal Cartel Office said in its preliminary assessment that Amazon’s pricing controls limit the visibility of merchants’ products and, “based on non-transparent marketplace rules,” interfere with their freedom to set prices.
Amazon uses algorithms and statistical models to calculate certain price caps for products, the Cartel Office said. Products that are flagged as having “prices that are too high” or “prices that are not competitive” can then be demoted in search results, excluded from advertising or removed from the buy box, they added.
The buy box is the listing that pops up first when a visitor clicks on a particular product, and the one that gets purchased when a shopper taps “Add to Cart.”
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“Competition in online retail in Germany is largely determined by Amazon’s rules for the trading platform,” Federal Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt said in a statement. “Since Amazon competes directly with other marketplace retailers on its platform, influencing competitors’ pricing, even in the form of price caps, is fundamentally questionable from a competition perspective.”
Amazon’s pricing practices not only threaten sellers’ businesses, but could also harm other retailers by deterring them from offering lower prices, the Cartel Office said.
An Amazon spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with the Cartel Office’s preliminary findings. They added that any changes to Amazon’s pricing mechanisms would be “bad for customers and selling partners.”
“If Amazon is prevented from helping people find competitively priced offers, it will lead to a bad shopping experience for them, as we’d need to promote uncompetitive or even abusive pricing in our store,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “This would mislead customers into thinking they’re getting good value when, in reality, they’re not.”
Amazon can provide feedback to the Cartel Office on its preliminary assessment before it reaches a final decision.
Amazon in 2022 reached a deal with European Union antitrust regulators who were investigating its use of seller data and buy box practices. As part of the settlement, Amazon agreed to display a second buy box on products sold in Europe when there is a second competing offer that’s different on price or delivery.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also probing Amazon’s use of pricing algorithms on its sprawling third-party marketplace as part of a wide-ranging antitrust lawsuit filed in 2023. Amazon has said the FTC’s complaint is “wrong on the facts and the law.”
The logo of LG Electronics is seen on the opening day of the Integrated Systems Europe exhibition in Barcelona on January 31, 2023.
Pau Barrena | Afp | Getty Images
South Korea-based LG Energy Solution announced Wednesday that it had signed a $4.3 billion contract for supplying batteries to a major corporation, without naming the customer.
The effective date of contract — receipt of orders — began Tuesday and will conclude at the end of July, 2030. During this period, the counterparty will not be disclosed to maintain business confidentiality, the company’s filing with the Korea Exchange showed Wednesday.Reuters reported that Tesla was the counterparty.
Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the EV maker was behind a previously undisclosed $16.5 billion chip contract with South Korea’s Samsung Electronics.
LG Energy said in its filing that details of the contract such as the deal amount were subject to change and the contract period could be extended by up to seven years.
“Investors are advised to carefully consider the possibility of changes or termination of the contract when making investment decisions,” the company cautioned. It’s shares were trading 0.26% lower.
The filing did not clarify whether the lithium iron phosphate batteries would be used in vehicles or energy storage systems. Its major battery customers include American electric-vehicle makers Tesla and General Motors.
The company has been expanding its battery production in the U.S., and is constructing a plant in Arizona that will produce lithium iron phosphate batteries.
LG Energy Solution and Tesla did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, looks on during the closing bell at the Nasdaq Market in New York City, U.S., March 25, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
CyberArk shares soared as much as 18% on Tuesday after The Wall Street Journal reported that cybersecurity provider Palo Alto Networks has held discussions to buy the identity management software maker for over $20 billion.
Cloud security is becoming an increasingly critical piece of the enterprise tech stack, especially as rapid advancements in artificial intelligence bring with them a whole new set of threats, and as ransomware attacks become more commonplace.
Founded in 2005, Palo Alto Networks has emerged in recent years as a consolidator in the cybersecurity industry and has grown into the biggest player in the space by market cap, with a valuation of over $130 billion. CEO Nikesh Arora, who was appointed to the job in 2018, has been on a spending spree, snapping up Protect AI in a deal that closed in July, and in 2023 buying Talon Cyber Security, Dig Security and Zycada Networks.
But CyberArk would represent by far Arora’s biggest bet yet. The Israeli company, which went public in 2014, provides technology that helps companies streamline the process of logging on to applications for employees.
CyberArk faces competition from Microsoft, Okta and IBM‘s HashiCorp. Another rival, SailPoint, returned to the public markets in February.
With Tuesday’s rally, CyberArk shares climbed to a record, surpassing their prior all-time high reached in February. The stock is up 29% this year, pushing the company’s market cap to almost $21 billion, after jumping 52% in 2024. Palo Alto shares, meanwhile, slid 3.5% on the report and are now up about 9% for the year.
Representatives from Palo Alto Networks and CyberArk declined to comment.
During the first quarter, CyberArk generated around $11.5 million in net income on around $318 million in revenue, which was up 43% from a year earlier.
It’s been an active stretch for big deals in the cyber market. Google said in March that it was spending $32 billion on Wiz, its largest acquisition on record by far, and a purchase intended to bolster its cloud business with greater AI security technology.
Networking giant Cisco also made its biggest deal ever in the security space, buying Splunk in 2023 for $28 billion. Splunk’s technology helps businesses monitor and analyze their data to minimize the risk of hacks and resolve technical issues faster.
Spotify shares dropped about 4% Tuesday after the music streaming platform fell short of Wall Street’s expectations and posted weak guidance for the current quarter.
Here’s how the company did versus LSEG estimates:
Loss: Loss of .42 euros vs earnings of 1.90 euros per share expected
Revenue: 4.19 billion euros vs. 4.26 billion expected
The Sweden-based music platform’s revenues rose 10% from about 3.81 billion euros in the year-ago period. The company posted a net loss of 86 million euros, or a loss of .42 euros per share, down from net income of 225 million euros, or 1.10 euros per share a year ago.
Third-quarter guidance came up short of Wall Street’s forecast.
The company expects revenues to reach 4.2 billion euros, compared to a 4.47 billion euro estimate from StreetAccount. Spotify said the forecast accounts for a 490-basis-point headwind due to foreign exchange rates.
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Monthly active users on the platform jumped 11% to 696 million, while paying subscribers rose 12% from a year ago to 276 million.
For the current quarter, Spotify said it expects to reach 710 million monthly active users, with 14 million net adds. The company expects 5 million net new premium subscribers in the third quarter to reach 281 million subscriptions.
During the period, Spotify said it rolled out a request feature for its artificial intelligence DJ. The company said engagement with the offering has roughly doubled over the last year.
In 2024, Spotify posted its first full year of profitability. Shares are up 57% this year.