When Amazon Freezes Your Funds: Legal Options for EU Sellers

*An honest assessment of what European law allows, where Polish courts can help, and how to decide whether a case is worth pursuing.*

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## The problem

A seller logs into Seller Central and finds the account deactivated. The disbursement that was due last week has not arrived. The balance — sometimes a few thousand euros, sometimes a six-figure sum accumulated over months of trading — is held under a “reserve” or pending an “investigation.” The stated reason, if there is one, is generic: a policy violation, a verification failure, suspected inauthentic activity.

This is one of the most common and most frustrating situations in cross-border e-commerce. The money is real, the seller’s costs are real, but the mechanism for getting an explanation — let alone the funds — is opaque. Internal appeals are answered by automated systems. Correspondence goes unanswered or is met with templated replies. The seller is told the matter is “under review” with no timeline.

The instinct is to treat this as a customer-service problem and keep appealing through the platform. Often that is the right first step. But when months pass and significant funds remain withheld, the question becomes a legal one: does European law actually give the seller a remedy, and if so, where and how can it be enforced?

This article sets out the honest answer. Not every frozen-funds case can be won, and some should not be pursued at all once the economics are weighed. But the legal framework is more favourable to sellers than many realise — and for businesses established in Poland, the Polish courts offer a route that is often overlooked.

## The legal framework

Three layers of EU law are relevant when a marketplace withholds a seller’s funds or terminates an account.

**The Platform-to-Business Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/1150).** The P2B Regulation governs the relationship between online intermediation services and the businesses that sell through them. Its protections are not optional contract terms — they are mandatory provisions of EU law that apply regardless of what the platform’s own terms say. Among other things, the Regulation requires a platform that restricts, suspends or terminates a business user’s account to give a clear statement of reasons, and in the case of termination, to provide that statement before the decision takes effect (subject to limited exceptions). Where a platform freezes funds and closes an account without a proper, specific statement of reasons, that is a potential breach of an obligation the platform cannot contract its way out of.

**The Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065).** The DSA reinforces this. It requires online platforms to provide a clear and specific statement of reasons for decisions that restrict a recipient’s account, including suspension or termination of services and of monetary payments. It also requires accessible internal complaint-handling and access to out-of-court dispute settlement. These obligations strengthen the seller’s evidential position: a platform that cannot point to a lawful, properly communicated basis for withholding funds is exposed.

**The Brussels I bis Regulation (Regulation (EU) 1215/2012).** This determines which national court has jurisdiction. Marketplace terms typically nominate the courts of the platform’s seat — frequently Luxembourg — as the exclusive forum. That clause is the single biggest practical obstacle for most sellers, because litigating in Luxembourg through local counsel is slow and expensive. But the analysis is more nuanced than the terms suggest. Where a seller’s claim rests on mandatory provisions of EU law (such as the P2B protections) and on harm suffered at the place where the business is established, there are arguments that a court in the seller’s own Member State has jurisdiction notwithstanding the contractual clause. These arguments do not succeed in every case, and they must be assessed on the specific facts.

Underpinning all of this, once jurisdiction is established, is national substantive law — in Poland, the rules on unjust enrichment (Article 405 of the Civil Code) and contractual liability provide the basis on which withheld funds can be claimed back.

## Practical analysis: where Polish courts come in

Here the distinction that defines our practice matters, and we want to be precise about it.

**Court proceedings: for sellers established in Poland.** When we take a frozen-funds matter into litigation, we do so before the Polish courts, on behalf of sellers whose business is established in Poland — typically a Polish *spółka z o.o.* The reason is simple and we state it plainly: jurisdiction is the gateway to everything else. The arguments for bringing a marketplace claim before a Polish court, rather than in Luxembourg, depend on the seller being domiciled here and on the harm being suffered here. We are Polish counsel; we litigate in Polish courts. We do not represent sellers in Luxembourg or German proceedings, and we will say so at the outset rather than after a retainer is signed.

For a Polish-established seller, that route carries real advantages. There are no foreign correspondent fees. Court costs are materially lower than running parallel proceedings abroad. And in the right case — where the platform’s own settlement and disbursement reports document the amounts owed — Polish procedure offers the *order for payment* track (*postępowanie nakazowe*), which can reduce the court fee to a fraction of the standard rate and produces an enforceable order quickly, shifting the burden onto the platform to contest it. That procedural advantage is specific to Polish law and is not available to a seller litigating elsewhere.

**Pre-litigation assessment and advisory: available more broadly.** Litigation is only one outcome, and often not the right one. The first and most valuable step in almost every case is an honest assessment of whether the case can be won and where. That assessment — reviewing the platform’s stated grounds, testing the strength of the documentation, mapping the realistic jurisdictional options, and recommending whether to pursue, settle or write off — is something we provide regardless of where the seller is established. A seller registered outside Poland may still benefit from a clear-eyed evaluation of the P2B and DSA arguments, the realistic recovery probability, and which forum (if any) is worth the cost. In those cases our role is diagnostic and strategic: we tell the seller candidly what the options are, including the option of not litigating, and where a different jurisdiction is the right venue, we say so.

In other words: **the courtroom route is for Polish-established sellers; the honest pre-decision analysis is for anyone facing this situation.**

## Scenarios

**A Polish company, EUR 140,000 frozen, clean records.** The seller is a Polish *sp. z o.o.* with complete settlement reports showing the withheld balance and no genuine policy issue beyond a verification dispute. This is the strongest profile: domicile in Poland supports the jurisdictional argument, the documented balance opens the order-for-payment route, and the platform’s failure to give a proper statement of reasons is a live P2B/DSA breach. This is a case worth assessing for litigation.

**A non-EU seller operating through agents, EUR 30,000 frozen, incomplete records.** Here the picture is different. The amount is below the level at which litigation makes economic sense, the documentation has gaps, and there may be no Polish establishment to anchor jurisdiction. Our honest advice in a case like this is usually not to litigate. The assessment still has value — it tells the seller where they stand and stops them spending five figures chasing a claim that cannot economically be recovered — but the recommendation is candour, not a lawsuit.

**A seller established elsewhere in the EU, large balance, strong grounds.** The legal arguments may be excellent, but if the seller has no connection to Poland, the Polish courts are not the venue. Here we provide the strategic assessment and are clear that the case belongs before another forum — we will not take a retainer to litigate a matter we are not positioned to bring.

## How to decide whether to act

A frozen-funds case is worth pursuing through litigation when, broadly, all of the following hold:

– the seller is established in Poland (for the Polish-court route);
– the amount withheld is large enough to justify the cost and time of proceedings — realistically a six-figure sum;
– the documentation is clean and the platform’s stated grounds are weak or unstated;
– the seller is prepared for proceedings measured in many months, not weeks;
– expectations about recovery are realistic, not absolute.

It is **not** worth pursuing when the amount is modest, the records are incomplete or there are genuine fraud indicators, the seller expects a quick result, or there is no jurisdictional anchor. We would rather tell a prospective client this at the assessment stage than take a fee for a case that cannot be won.

Honest assessment is the core of how we work. We do not promise to recover anyone’s money, and we are sceptical of anyone who does. What we offer is a clear legal evaluation of where you stand under European law, and — for Polish-established sellers with a strong case — a realistic route through the Polish courts.

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*If your marketplace funds have been frozen and you want a candid evaluation of your options, contact us for a pre-decision case assessment. We will tell you honestly whether your case can be won, where, and whether it is worth pursuing.*

*This article is general information about European and Polish law and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts and documentation.*