M-Edge claims Amazon altered deals after the fact

Kindle case designer M-Edge quietly sued Amazon on Thursday last week for what it claims is anti-competitive attempts to silence a rival. It accused Amazon of both unfair competition as well as false advertising, interfering with customers, and violating a case design patent. Amazon had reportedly breached a three-year contract by first asking M-Edge for a 15 percent cut in November 2009 but, just two months later, hiking the rate to 32 percent and threatening M-Edge with being pulled as a third-party dealer if it didn't agree.

M-Edge held out until May, but Amazon is accused of saying it would retaliate against M-Edge and "play" with its results so that it would be hidden, effectively taking it off the store without technically pulling it outright. Amazon may have also kept the company out of its approved Kindle accessory designer list to bury its results, and allegedly lied about M-Edge cases being out of stock.

The small, Maryland-based company decided to swallow the $6.5 million in reduced sales rather than risk losing nearly all of its business.

The same year, Amazon began marketing a light-equipped Kindle case like one M-Edge was making. It violated a patent, M-Edge said. By implication, it suggested that the real motive was to shut out a competing case designer.

Amazon won't comment on the lawsuit. The company has already been accused of bait-and-switch pricing for partners before, having renegged on promises of paying Android developers during free app giveaways on the Amazon Appstore. The online retailer is said to offer a minimum royalty cut but, with at least one or more developers, told them they would have to give their apps away for free. [via Wall Street Journal]

By Electronista Staff