milan italys antitrust watchdog said on thursday it was investigating ecommerce giants amazon and ebay for an allegedly excessive rise in the price of products such as hand sanitiser during the coronavirus crisis italy is the country hardest hit by the virus in europe with more than 1000 deaths and a nationwide lockdown the antitrust authority said in a statement it had opened a probe into the two companies subsidiaries in italy and in europe in relation to an unwarranted spike in prices of items such as disinfectant gel and protective masks it said it would also investigate allegations of misleading advertisements for some items put up for sale on the ecommerce platforms where they were described as being effective against the coronavirus advt in a emailed statement to reuters ebay said the company stands ready to cooperate with relevant authorities to identify any abuse an amazon spokesman said the company had no immediate comment because it was still looking into the matter reuters published on mar 13 2020 at 1249 pm ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etretail app get realtime updates save your favourite articles scan to download app ecommerce amazon online shopping hand sanitiser face masks coronavirus ebay etailer italy homenewsitalian antitrust watchdog probes amazon ebay over price spikes in virus crisis