Amazon Fined By UK Regulator For Delayed Responses In Deliveroo Probe

The UK’s competition regulator (The Competition and Markets Authority or CMA) has fined Amazon 55,000 pounds over delayed responses to the information requested in connection with the e-commerce giant’s purchase of a 16% stake in London-based food platform Deliveroo.

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Last month, the competition regulator finally cleared Amazon’s (AMZN) purchase of a minority stake in Deliveroo after probing the deal for over a year. The news of Amazon leading a $575 million Series G investment in Deliveroo had first emerged in May 2019.

Today, the regulator said that Amazon delayed responses to two sets of statutory information requests. This delay led to the late submission of 189 documents, which included a significant amount of information relevant to the regulator’s Phase 2 Amazon/ Deliveroo merger investigation.

The CMA added, “Although Amazon did ultimately provide all of the information required, the CMA considers that Amazon’s behaviour caused unnecessary delays to the CMA’s investigation, with some documents being provided almost two months late within the course of a six-month investigation.”

Amazon stock has surged 78.2% year-to-date as its e-commerce sales and cloud computing AWS (Amazon Web Services) business are experiencing a spike in demand amid the pandemic. The 12-month average analyst price target of $3726 suggests a 13.1% upside potential in the stock.

On September 3, Robert W. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian reaffirmed his Buy rating for Amazon with a price target of $3,500 following a meeting with Amazon’s CEO of its Worldwide Consumer division.

The meeting reflected on the executive’s perspective on Amazon’s operations, the impact of the pandemic, investments in logistics, and plans to manage the Q4 Peak, Prime Day, and Private Label. According to Sebastian, the meeting reaffirmed his confidence about Amazon’s status as a top pick.

Wall Street is very bullish about Amazon’s prospects right now. The stock has a Strong Buy consensus based on 37 Buys, 1 Hold and no Sell ratings. (See AMZN stock analysis on TipRanks)