Close on the heels of recent damning reports about the alleged mistreatment of Amazon’s temporary workers in Germany, the Federal Antitrust Office said in a Wednesday statement that the online retail biggie has apparently violated German antitrust laws by prohibiting third-party traders to sell their products cheaper elsewhere.

The antitrust investigation into Amazon’s pricing has already been launched in Germany; with antitrust authorities in the country having started interrogating 2,400 traders who signed up to Amazon's Marketplace platform.

The interrogation stems from the fact that while the platform gives the traders the ability to sell their devices directly to millions of Amazon users, the online retailer requires the traders to comply with its policies.

With Andreas Mundt - head of Germany's Federal Antitrust Office – noting in a Wednesday statement that German antitrust authorities had "considerable" evidence to show that the conditions imposed by Amazon on third-party traders violated cartel rules by overly hindering competition, Amazon may be forced to drop the offending ‘price parity’ clause if it is proved that the clause amounts to breach of antitrust rules.

Drawing attention to the implications of Amazon's ‘price parity’ clause, Mundt said that the clause “takes away the traders' freedom to offer their products at lower prices elsewhere on the Internet.”