Judge refuses to delay Amazon's marketplace antitrust trial, keeping March 2027 date

A federal judge in Seattle on Friday refused to delay the Federal Trade Commission's marketplace-monopoly trial against Amazon.com Inc., rejecting the company's bid to push the proceeding from late March 2027 into the summer and keeping intact one of the government's largest pending antitrust cases against a technology company.

U.S. District Judge John H. Chun denied Amazon's motion for a continuance of at least 60 days, which would have moved the trial to as late as June 2027. In his order, Chun wrote that he "has been preparing for some time for the March 29, 2027, trial date in this matter" and said he did not "see a good reason to disturb the current schedule," according to MLex's account of the ruling and a parallel report from Law360. The case, FTC v. Amazon.com Inc., carries the docket number 2:23-cv-01495 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and has been pending for more than three years.

A lawsuit over pricing power

The FTC, joined at filing by attorneys general from 17 states and later by Puerto Rico, sued Amazon in September 2023, accusing the company of illegally maintaining monopoly power in online retail. The complaint centers on what the agency calls anti-discounting conduct: algorithms and contract terms that the FTC says punish third-party sellers who list identical products for less money elsewhere on the internet, discouraging competitors from undercutting Amazon on price. A separate strand of the case alleges Amazon ties eligibility for its Prime badge to use of its own warehousing and delivery network, known as Fulfilled by Amazon, which the agency says forecloses independent logistics providers from competing for Prime-eligible orders.

Amazon has disputed the government's framing from the start. When Chun allowed most of the federal claims and many of the state claims to proceed past a motion to dismiss in a September 2024 order, an Amazon spokesperson said at the time that the ruling "requires the court to assume all facts alleged in the complaint are true," adding, "they are not," a position the company has continued to restate in its own public log of filings in the case, published on its newsroom site.

Even after the change in FTC leadership that followed the 2024 election, the agency kept the case alive. Current FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has said the commission remains open to a settlement with Amazon, but only on terms the agency believes would genuinely benefit consumers, according to MLex reporting on the chairman's remarks earlier this year. No settlement has been reached, and both sides have continued litigating toward trial.

A trial date that keeps moving

The case was originally expected to go to trial in October 2026. It has since been pushed back twice, first to February 9, 2027, and then, under a joint proposal from Amazon and the FTC themselves, to March 29, 2027, in part to align with scheduling in a related coordinated proceeding. Amazon's latest request would have moved it a third time.

The company's stated reason was not a lack of readiness but a scheduling conflict with a separate, older case: a lawsuit California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed against Amazon in September 2022 in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging similar anti-discounting practices under the state's Unfair Competition Law and Cartwright Act. Bonta's office publicly welcomed the FTC's 2023 suit as a complement to California's own case, saying at the time that "misuse of monopoly power on the backs of consumers and workers deserves no place in our economy." That California case, which names major retail rivals including Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Chewy as alleged participants in the pricing scheme, had been set for trial in January 2027. A state court judge recently called that January start unrealistic and signaled it would slip later into the year, landing close to, or on top of, the federal trial date.

Amazon told Chun that honoring an agreement it had reached with California to continue that state case "would create a conflict with the scheduled trial in this action," and asked the federal court to clear its own calendar by waiting until June 2027. The FTC opposed the request, arguing Amazon had not shown good cause for another delay. Chun sided with the agency.

"The court has been preparing for some time for the March 29, 2027, trial date in this matter," Judge Chun wrote, adding that he did not "see a good reason to disturb the current schedule."

Who has a stake in the outcome

The ruling matters well beyond the two parties in the Seattle courtroom. Amazon's online store generates the bulk of a retail business that, together with its advertising and cloud divisions, makes the company one of the most valuable in the world. A finding that its pricing practices violate antitrust law could force changes to how it manages relationships with the millions of third-party sellers whose listings make up most of what shoppers buy through the site, potentially altering fee structures, fulfillment requirements and the contractual terms that bind sellers to Amazon's platform.

Third-party merchants, many of which have said publicly and in sealed filings that they feel unable to offer lower prices on their own websites for fear of losing Amazon's "Buy Box" placement, are the group the FTC says it is trying to protect. Consumers are the other named beneficiary of the case, with the agency arguing that Amazon's practices have kept prices higher across the broader online retail market, not just on Amazon's own site. Rival retailers drawn into the California litigation, including Walmart and Target, are watching a related but separate legal track that could shape how all large retailers negotiate with sellers going forward.

What happens next

With Friday's order, the federal case is locked onto its March 29, 2027, trial date for now, barring a further motion or a settlement between Amazon and the FTC. That leaves open the awkward possibility Amazon warned of: a state court trial in San Francisco and a federal trial in Seattle, both centered on overlapping pricing allegations, running close together or back-to-back. How California's Superior Court resolves its own rescheduling will determine whether that collision actually happens or whether the state case ultimately moves even later to avoid it.

In the meantime, both sides are expected to proceed with remaining pretrial work, including expert discovery and dispositive motions, ahead of the March date. Amazon has not said whether it will seek further relief from the scheduling order, and the FTC has not issued a public statement beyond its opposition to the continuance filed in Chun's court. Barring a settlement, the case is on track to become one of the first major monopolization trials against Amazon's core retail business to reach a courtroom.