Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has confirmed that the clause Amazon relied on to raise Prime subscription prices in 2022 is invalid — and Amazon has responded by temporarily lowering the fee for the customers the ruling covers.
The court in Karlsruhe backed the consumer advice centre of North Rhine-Westphalia (Verbraucherzentrale NRW), which had challenged the price-adjustment clause in Amazon's terms and conditions, confirming earlier decisions by the Düsseldorf regional and higher regional courts. The disputed increase took effect in September 2022 for existing memberships: the monthly fee rose from €7.99 to €8.99 and the annual price from €69 to €89.90, with Prime Student also raised. Amazon justified the step at the time with "general and material cost changes due to inflation".
"Consumers must be protected from incalculable price increases," said Wolfgang Schuldzinski, the consumer body's chief executive, adding that the priority now is that affected customers get back money Amazon demanded unlawfully.
In a statement given to ComputerBase on 1 October, an Amazon spokesperson said the company disagreed with the ruling "on the implementation of our price change" but would "temporarily adjust the Prime fee for customers whose membership began before 15 September 2022 and has existed unchanged since". Amazon said it would inform those members of their status before their next payment date, and that fees already paid are the subject of a separate proceeding.
Recovering those payments is the job of a parallel collective action before the higher regional court in Hamm. Consumers can still join the case register (Klageregister) free of charge and without bearing litigation risk; how much an individual can claim depends on which Prime tier they used and how long they paid the higher price, but can currently exceed €60 per person.
The decision does not otherwise change the price of new Prime subscriptions, so the effect is limited to the specific group of long-standing members whose contracts predate the 2022 increase.
