Taking Amazon to County Court: Settling, Getting Paid and What Happens If You End Up in Court
This is part five of a guide for Amazon UK FBA or FBM sellers on taking Amazon to County Court. Part one is here: How to Sue Amazon UK as a Seller – Part 1
As we covered in Part Four and earlier in this series, Amazon and Eversheds will leave everything to the last minute. That is their standard playbook. But the chances are, after a few weeks of back and forth and just a few days before the scheduled mediation, you will have come down a bit, and they will have come up a bit.
In a case I’m familiar with, the seller eventually came down a bit, and Amazon came up accordingly. The final settlement landed at roughly 75% of the original claim, after all withheld stock was returned. Although the agreement was framed as a “commercial resolution to avoid further legal costs” and “without admission of liability,” it broadly covered court fees, interest, and administrative time. In truth, far more time was spent than was compensated, but that is often the reality in these types of disputes. This is typical of how these negotiations go. Other sellers I’ve spoken with have reported similar results, especially where their claim was clearly presented and pressure was kept on up to the mediation deadline.
Personally, I would start with a higher claim than I expected to settle for. That gives more negotiating room. I remember reading about personal injury cases in the US where one party sues for a million dollars knowing full well they will settle for fifty to a hundred grand. I am not suggesting you inflate your claim by 90 percent, but adding a buffer for negotiation is probably a good idea. Eversheds need to be seen to have beaten you down.
Once the deal is done, you can call that a win. If your claim was about withheld stock, you’ve got it back or have been paid for it. You should end up a few quid in front to cover your time and expenses. You won’t be retiring on it, but you’ve got a resolution. You sued Amazon — and you won. Pour yourself a large one!
When a Deal is Reached: Withdrawing the Claim
Once a deal is agreed, Eversheds will ask you to discontinue the claim before they pay you. This is the point where you may think, “I’m dropping the claim before I have the money – can they now walk away?”
It is a fair concern, but in practice, they will not. You have the offer in writing, you have both agreed on the figure, and the court can still be re-approached if they reneged. As long as the agreement is clear and you have both signed it, you will be fine.
The Settlement Agreement and the Third-Party Clause
They will send you a Settlement Agreement to sign. This will include all the usual legal boilerplate, including a non-disclosure clause. You will not be allowed to publish the terms or even say you settled unless legally compelled. This is standard. They do not want anything about this process to become public.
You won’t be allowed to publish the terms or even say you settled unless legally compelled. This is standard — they do not want anything about this process to become public. No blog posts, no LinkedIn comments, no YouTube rants. Nothing.
You will also notice that a third party may appear in the agreement – usually Amazon UK Services Ltd. This is simply the administrative arm that will handle the payment, it is claimed. For example, if you sued Amazon EU Sarl, they are based in Luxembourg and so they use one of their UK entities as a party. This is not unusual and is no cause for concern.
I strongly recommend uploading the agreement to GPT (if you haven’t done so already) and asking it to read through it before signing. Ask GPT to highlight anything unclear or one-sided and to rewrite any clauses that seem unfair. You can go back to Eversheds and ask for changes, though they will resist deviating from their standard wording unless your objection is particularly strong.
Electronic Signatures and Final Steps
You can sign the document electronically using Adobe or any reputable online signing service. Once that is done and you have a copy signed by them, ask Eversheds if they’d like to prepare the Notice of Discontinuance “in a format they prefer”. They will, and it saves you a job researching how to do it.
Once you receive the signed copy of the agreement from them, send the Notice of Discontinuance to the court, having electronically signed it, and cc Eversheds in. If mediation is booked soon, notify the mediation service as well with the Notice of Discontinuance and ask them to cancel the appointment.
You can also specify any bank account you like for the settlement payment. It does not have to be the same account you used for Amazon sales or even your business account.
Around a week later, the money will land in your account. The sender will show as ES INT LLP (Eversheds Sutherland).
But What If You Do Go to Mediation?
Mediation is usually a phone call with a court-appointed mediator. It is informal, free, and confidential. You and Eversheds are never on the same call – the mediator acts as a go-between.
You will be asked to briefly outline your position, and the mediator will then call Eversheds, relay the message, and return with their reply. This can go back and forth a few times. It is not legally binding unless an agreement is reached. If no deal is made, mediation ends and the case proceeds.
Amazon does not want this. It costs them more, and they cannot script or control the outcome. They will nearly always try to settle before mediation happens – often at the last minute.
The page on the government website all about mediation is >here<.
And If You Do End Up in Court?
On the rare chance this gets to a hearing, it will likely be in your local County Court.
You can represent yourself if you are confident to do so. The judge will not expect you to be legally trained, and they will allow some leeway. Stick to the facts. Be respectful. Have everything printed, labelled, and ready.
This is the time you would use the negotiation documents that you sent that are not marked Without Prejudice. Take GPT’s advice on whether to blank out specific numbers or details to preserve the other side’s Without Prejudice status. It will show you are being entirely reasonable and do much of the talking for you.
You can also consider hiring a barrister, especially if your case is worth a significant amount. A solicitor is not necessary for a Small Claims hearing (many high street ones are useless in court anyway), and you can instruct a barrister directly (this is known as direct access). If you are not confident in presenting your case, this might be worth considering.
Even at this point, Amazon will likely try to settle before you step into the courtroom. And if your paperwork and case are strong, they probably will.
In Summary
- You will likely settle before mediation or court.
- Expect to compromise – you may settle for 70 to 80 percent of your original claim.
- Read the settlement agreement carefully and have GPT look it over.
- Do not panic if you are asked to discontinue the claim before payment – just ensure everything is signed and agreed in writing.
- Mediation is low-pressure, informal, and Amazon will want to avoid it.
- If it ever gets to court, you can represent yourself or consider hiring a barrister. But they will want to avoid that too.
Taking Amazon to County Court: What About the Seller Account?
Will they close your seller account when it’s all done? In the case I am familiar with, they didn’t. The account remained open. In fact, Amazon reactivated several long-cancelled listings during the process, likely to enable removal orders — and those listings are now live again and selling well, though as FBM rather than FBA, of course. We can speculate why that is, but we don’t know for sure. Perhaps they decided it was better to leave the matter alone, having reached a settlement. Maybe the left hand just doesn’t talk to the right hand. Or maybe they simply didn’t want to escalate things further and risk reopening Pandora’s box.
That said, it is this writer’s view that neither FBA nor Amazon can be trusted — their systems are simply too broken. If you continue to sell there, make sure you manually withdraw your funds every single day. That way, when one of the inevitable account freezes happens, Amazon will be holding as little of your money as possible. In my experience, account freezes seem to occur less often when there isn’t much left in your balance. After all, their business model relies on holding on to your money for as long as they can get away with it — something every seller knows all too well.
This guide is designed to help ordinary UK Amazon sellers navigate a complex and frustrating process and actually get results. Whether your claim is for withheld stock or money, you now know more than most about taking Amazon to County Court, how to build the case, file it, negotiate it, and win.
If you have followed this series through all five parts, well done. You have already done more than most sellers will ever do – and that is exactly why Amazon usually settles. Of all the sellers they abuse (and there are lots – their forums are full of people crying in the dark), those who start a court action against them are minuscule. As always, your comments, corrections and thoughts are welcome in the comment box below.
The author is available for a personal telephone consultation on this subject. The fee is £50 for 30 minutes. If you would like to arrange this, please leave a comment below with your contact details. Your comment will go into moderation and will not be visible to others. You will be contacted within a few days.
Disclaimer: The author is not a solicitor or barrister. This guide is based on personal experience and is provided for informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice. If you are unsure about any aspect of your claim, you should seek professional legal assistance.