Jeff Bezos “may have lied to Congress” about Amazon’s business enterprise techniques when he reported that the company does not use information from 3rd-celebration sellers to produce its individual products and solutions, according to a scathing letter from a group of bipartisan legislators.
The information will come following a Reuters investigation released last Wednesday confirmed that Amazon tracked search and gross sales knowledge from third-party sellers to support create its own personal label items in India — a follow that Bezos denied engaging in when he testified to Congress beneath oath in 2020.
Citing the Reuters reporting, a group of Congress customers including Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Ken Buck (R-Colo) sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Sunday threatening to inquire the Department of Justice to open a prison probe.
“At finest, this reporting confirms that Amazon’s representatives misled the Committee,” wrote the lawmakers in a duplicate of the letter shared with The Submit. “At worst, it demonstrates that they may well have lied to Congress in probable violation of federal prison legislation.”
“We strongly inspire you to make use of this prospect to right the history and give the Committee with sworn, truthful, and exact responses to this ask for as we contemplate whether or not a referral of this issue to the Division of Justice for criminal investigation is correct,” extra the legislators, who also integrated Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Pramila Jayapal (D-Calif.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
The lawmakers also cited reporting from the Wall Street Journal and the Markup about Amazon’s personal-label business.
An Amazon spokesperson denied that Bezos lied to Congress and claimed media reports on the subject have been inaccurate.
“Amazon and its executives did not mislead the committee, and we have denied and sought to appropriate the report on the inaccurate media article content in concern,” the spokesperson reported in an e-mail to The Put up. “As we have previously said, we have an inside policy, which goes over and above that of any other retailer’s plan that we’re mindful of, that prohibits the use of personal vendor facts to acquire Amazon personal label products and solutions.”
In addition to bashing Bezos, the lawmakers’ letter also names Amazon’s associate typical counsel Nate Sutton, who testified in 2019 — as properly as common counsel David Zapolsky and general public plan vice president Brian Huseman.
Statements made by all 4 executives have been contradicted by recent media reports, the lawmakers claimed.
When Bezos testified in Congress final 12 months, he reported the e-commerce huge has a rule prohibiting its personnel from employing information on 3rd-occasion sellers to help its private-label enterprise.
“If we observed someone violated it, we would acquire action,” stated Bezos, who was Amazon CEO at the time but has given that stepped down.
Amazon is at the moment squaring off towards antitrust regulators in the US, European Union and India, who are all investigating the firm for allegedly working with its sizing to squash opposition.
In the US, Federal Trade Commission main Lina Khan wrote in a 2017 paper that Amazon’s non-public-brand business raises levels of competition considerations.
“It is third-bash sellers who bear the preliminary expenditures and uncertainties when introducing new products by merely spotting them, Amazon receives to market merchandise only at the time their achievement has been analyzed,” she wrote. “The anticompetitive implications right here feel distinct.”
Amazon, in the meantime, has called on Khan to recuse herself from any investigations of the company because she has prepared critically about it in the previous.
