Led by Rosenblatt law firm, Amazon sellers are preparing to take legal action in the UK against the marketplace, claiming it has unlawfully frozen tens of millions of their disbursements that have been frozen.
Back in January 2024, we wrote about Amazon disbursements being held due to unmet UK business establishment requirements and it appears that some are still waiting for their funds to be released.
The legal action will aim to win compensation for affected sellers and force Amazon to unfreeze their funds. Naturally, Rosenblatt want to gather as many sellers in this situation as possible and are calling on sellers whose funds remain frozen by Amazon to visit their landing page to find out more and submit their information to join the legal action.
The frozen money is the sale proceeds that sellers have earned from selling their products. The sale proceeds are essential to cash flow, and are required to continue the running of their businesses. Sellers believe that funds are frequently frozen on baseless and incorrect grounds, such as needing to update their VAT information.
Rosenblatt say that some sellers have had nearly £300,000 frozen by Amazon. The combined amount of sellers’ funds wrongly frozen by Amazon is expected to be in the tens of millions of pounds. They say that sellers have been offered very little information after these actions were taken against them, despite engaging in good faith by providing letters, evidence, and sometimes hundreds of emails.
Efforts by the former enterprise minister Kevin Hollinrake MP raised awareness of this issue back in February 2024. Despite this, sellers continue to have their money withheld, unlawfully say Rosenblatt, by Amazon. It’s worth noting that some of the cases Rosenblatt cite appear to be for issues other than unmet UK business establishment requirements, such as trademark infringement etc.
If you want to explore whether you are eligible to join this legal action, it will not cost you any money.
Amazon’s agreement with its sellers has very clear rules for what it can and cannot do. We believe that Amazon’s treatment of so many of its sellers is a clear breach of that agreement.We encourage all sole traders and businesses that sell goods on Amazon in the UK to consider joining our legal action to fight for compensation if their funds remain unlawfully frozen.
– Dean Nicholls, Partner, Rosenblatt
