A French court has handed Amazon a record fine of €4 million (£3.6m) for imposing “abusive conditions” on retailers that sell on its platform.

The Paris Commercial Court also ordered Amazon to remove the “abusive” clauses from its contracts with vendors within six months. If it fails to do so, it will incur an additional fine of €10,000 (£9,000) per day.

The case was brought to court by the French Finance Ministry in December 2017 following a two-year investigation. The ministry had requested a €10 million (£9m) fine but it welcomed the court’s ruling.

“This is very good news,” said Loïc Tanguy of the ministry’s General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control. “It is a record fine for a conviction for abusive trading conditions. But apart from the size of the fine, the great majority of the clauses we put forward have been recognised as illegal by the court.”

The ministry argued that Amazon had been able to change the terms of its contracts, require shorter delivery times and force vendors to immediately advance the cost of undelivered or damaged products. If vendors refused, they were excluded from the platform, it said. The ministry told the court that Amazon also had the right to suspend its contracts with vendors at any time, for example if a customer gave them a bad review, and accused the retailer of forcing some suppliers into bankruptcy.