This page is general information about how brand control on Amazon works in the UK. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on as such. Competition and trade mark law depend heavily on the facts of each case, and you should take your own professional advice before acting.
Why most of the advice you will find may not apply in the UK
Search for how to remove unauthorised Amazon sellers and much of what you find is written for the American market. The standard US playbook is built on MAP enforcement, setting a minimum advertised price and cutting off resellers who breach it. In the United States this is broadly lawful under the Colgate doctrine.
In the United Kingdom the position is different, and that same approach may breach competition law. Setting or enforcing a minimum resale price is generally treated as resale price maintenance, which is a hardcore restriction under Chapter I of the Competition Act 1998. The Competition and Markets Authority has taken enforcement action in this area. Publicly reported decisions include a fine of 2.7 million pounds against National Lighting Company over minimum online prices on its Endon and Saxby brands, 2,298,820 pounds against ITW Limited in relation to Foster commercial refrigeration, and 786,668 pounds against Ultra Finishing Limited in relation to online discounting of bathroom fittings.
The distinction is narrow and worth understanding. A supplier can generally publish a recommended retail price, and can generally set a maximum price. What a supplier should not do is require a reseller to hold a minimum price, or use threats, withheld supply, delayed delivery, less favourable terms or financial incentives to push them into holding one. Where you sit on that line is a question for your own advisers.
What is exhaustion of rights, and why might it stop me?
Exhaustion of rights means that once goods have been placed on the market in the UK or EEA by you or with your consent, you generally cannot use your trade mark to control what happens to those specific units. The buyer may be entitled to resell them, including on Amazon, and including at a price you dislike.
This is often why enforcement built purely on the argument that a seller was never authorised does not succeed, and why brands can spend months on Amazon complaint forms achieving little.
The exception that tends to matter
Exhaustion is not absolute. Under section 12(2) of the Trade Marks Act 1994, a brand owner may still be able to oppose further dealings where there are legitimate reasons, in particular where the condition of the goods has been changed or impaired. In an Amazon context that can include goods that have been repackaged or relabelled, stock that is damaged or near expiry, products with batch codes removed, counterfeit product, and goods sold without required UK labelling.
In practice this is often the difference between a complaint that succeeds and one that does not. Much of the work in a UK unauthorised-seller programme is building that evidence.
Four routes worth considering
1. A properly drafted selective distribution agreement
Selective distribution is a common mechanism for controlling who sells a brand in the UK. A supplier appoints resellers against specified qualitative criteria and requires authorised members not to supply anyone outside the network. It sits within the Competition Act 1998 Vertical Agreements Block Exemption Order 2022, in force since 1 June 2022 and running until at least 2028, which generally presumes lawfulness where market share is below 30 per cent. Agreements of this kind should be drafted with competition law advice.
2. Close the leak in your supply chain
Grey stock on Amazon is usually a symptom. Apply batch and lot coding you can trace, run test purchases and match codes back to the invoice that left your warehouse, and set clear contractual terms with your distributors about onward supply.
3. Act where there is a genuine infringement
Amazon Brand Registry is the gateway and typically takes around four weeks once your trade mark is in order. It is worth being clear-eyed about what it does. It gives you tools to act on infringement, but it does not generally give you the right to remove a seller of genuine, unaltered goods, and unfounded reports carry their own risks.
4. Take the Buy Box back by operating the listing yourself
Often the most reliable route, and the least legally fraught. A brand selling its own product through FBA, with full stock, strong metrics and a properly built listing, is hard for a small grey reseller to displace. You are not restricting anyone. You are simply the offer Amazon prefers to show.
How long does this realistically take?
Trade mark registration takes around four months in the UK if unopposed. Brand Registry enrolment takes roughly four weeks once the mark is in place. Supply chain tracing typically takes four to eight weeks. A selective distribution rollout usually takes two to three months. Buy Box recovery is often fastest at four to eight weeks.