Amazon has reached a historic $2.5bn settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which said the online retail giant tricked customers into signing up for its Prime memberships and made it difficult for them to cancel after doing so.

The Seattle company will pay $1bn in civil penalties – the largest such fine in the agency’s history for a rule violation – and $1.5bn will be paid back to consumers who were unintentionally enrolled in Prime, or were deterred from cancelling their subscriptions, the agency said on Thursday.

The surprise settlement comes just days after the trial began in the United States District Court in Seattle this week. At the heart of the case is the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, a 2010 law designed to ensure that people know what they’re being charg

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