Amazon sued by US product safety agency over hazardous goods

Company says it cannot be held legally responsible for these products sold by third-party sellers

Amazon has faced a string of product liability lawsuits around the US. Pascal Rossignol / Reuters

Amazon is being sued by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is seeking an order determining that the world's largest online retailer is legally responsible for defective products sold in its sprawling third-party marketplace.

A complaint filed on Wednesday says Amazon sold children’s sleepwear that failed to meet US federal standards for flammability, 24,000 carbon monoxide detectors that failed to activate when the gas was present, and 400,000 hair dryers that risked shock and electrocution.

Each of the products was sold by one of Amazon’s millions of third-party sellers, and all used a service called Fulfilment By Amazon, in which the company stores and distributes the products on behalf of its sellers.

After the CPSC notified Amazon of the defects, the Seattle-based company removed some of the product listings, notified customers their goods presented a hazard and offered a refund, but the actions were insufficient, the agency said.

Amazon “did not want to have this be called a recall, and they did not want to be considered legally responsible for these products”, CPSC spokesman Joe Martyak said. “That’s the dealbreaker here. We think you are responsible for this.”

Amazon has faced a string of product liability lawsuits around the US that seek to hold the company responsible for harm caused by items purchased on its marketplace. The company has argued it isn’t liable for the goods sold by outside vendors, saying it merely provides a service connecting buyers and sellers and, in one case, likening itself to an auctioneer rather than a retailer.

“Customer safety is a top priority and we take prompt action to protect customers when we are aware of a safety concern,” Amazon spokeswoman Mary Kate McCarthy said.

Amazon took down listings for those products it was able to identify, advised shoppers to destroy them and offered “to expand our capabilities to handle recalls” for products sold by both Amazon and its merchants, she said. “We are unclear as to why the CPSC has rejected that offer or why they have filed a complaint seeking to force us to take actions almost entirely duplicative of those we’ve already taken.”

The CPSC is best known for voluntary recalls of defective and dangerous products, in which the agency and a manufacturer or distributor agree on the outlines of a recall. It co-ordinates about 300 such recalls a year.

Actions like the complaint against Amazon are far more rare. Mr Martyak said the CPSC has sued companies to seek to compel a recall just “a handful” of times in the past decade or so, including last week, when CPSC sued Thyssenkrupp Access, alleging defective residential elevators. In that instance, the company objected to the demand for a recall.

“We’re eager to work with them on this,” Mr Martyak said of Amazon. “The door is still open as far as doing a recall on this.”

The complaint seeks a determination that Amazon is a distributor of consumer products under the Consumer Product Safety Act and an order compelling the company to work with the agency to eliminate the risk to consumers of the defective products.