US agency puts onus on Amazon for sale of hazardous third-party products

By Deborah Mary Sophia

(Reuters) -Amazon.com is responsible for the sale of hazardous third-party products on its platform, a U.S. government agency said, ordering the e-commerce giant to propose steps to inform consumers and encourage them to return or destroy the products.

The directive from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) covers more than 400,000 products, including faulty carbon monoxide detectors, hairdryers without electrocution protection and children's sleepwear that violated flammability standards.

"Amazon failed to notify the public about these hazardous products and did not take adequate steps to encourage its customers to return or destroy them, thereby leaving consumers at substantial risk of injury," the agency said on Tuesday.

It called Amazon a "distributor" of defective products listed on its website as it is stored and dispatched by the company.

Amazon said it would appeal against the order and present its case in court.

Separately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it had last week issued a warning letter to Amazon over its distribution of potent chemical peel drug products that violated the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

It said such products pose a public health risk as they can cause skin injuries such as burns, wounds, swelling and scarring.

The health agency issued a similar notice to big-box retailer Walmart. The retailer did not respond to a request for comment, while Amazon did not comment on the issue.

The CPSC had sued Amazon in July 2021, forcing the company to recall hundreds of thousands of hazardous products sold on its platform.

In response, Amazon had removed a "vast majority" of such products from its store and refunded customers, but said it only provides logistics services to independent merchants and is not a distributor.

Late last year, the agency warned consumers to stop using toy magnets from Chinese seller Doraemon, which were being sold on Amazon.com, following seven deaths from ingestion.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Arun Koyyur)