Lawmakers are wondering if Amazon’s top executives lied to Congress

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Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos

Mark Ralston | AFP | Getty Images

Five members of the House Justice Committee sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wondering if the company’s top executives deceived Congress or lied under oath as part of a broad investigation into the competitive practices of large tech companies.

Representatives Jerrold Nadler, DN.Y., David Cicilline, DR.I., Ken Buck, R-Colo., Pramila Jayapal, D-Calif. and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on Sunday asked Amazon to provide “exculpatory evidence” to corroborate previous testimony and statements provided by then CEO Jeff Bezos and other executives on the committee in 2019 and 2020. Lawmakers have stated that Jassy must respond by November 1st.

Lawmakers pointed to “recent and credible reports,” by Reuters, Markup, Wall Street Journal, and others, on Amazon’s private label practices and its collection of third-party vendor data that directly contradict testimonies from Bezos and executives. by Amazon.

“At best, this report confirms that Amazon representatives misled the committee,” the lawmakers wrote. “At worst, it shows that they may have lied to Congress in a possible violation of federal criminal law.”

Lawmakers said they are also considering whether they will refer the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.

An Amazon spokesperson denied that the company and its executives misled the committee. The spokesperson added that the company “denied and tried to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question.”

The spokesperson said Amazon has internal policies that prohibit the use of individual vendor data to develop private label products and does not favor private label products in search results.

The House Justice Commission in 2019 opened an investigation into the competitive practices of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. As part of its Amazon investigation, the committee looked at how the company uses third-party vendor data on its platform and whether it unfairly favors its products.

In a series of hearings during the investigation, Amazon executives defended the company’s business practices. Amazon Associate General Counsel Nate Sutton testified in July 2019 that Amazon does not use data from individual sellers to inform its strategy, but claimed to use aggregate data that could give him an idea of ​​how a product category is doing. After the hearing, Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky reiterated many of Sutton’s claims.

When testifying in July 2020, Bezos said Amazon has a policy that safeguards vendor data from employee access, noting that it prohibits the use of individual vendor information for the purpose of launching private label products.

“If we find out that someone has violated it, we will take action,” Bezos said at the time.

The Journal’s report found that Amazon employees used non-aggregated or easily identifiable data from third-party sellers to figure out which products to make. Amazon executives have also developed workarounds to Amazon’s internal restrictions to gain access to individual vendor data, as part of a practice dubbed “going over the fence,” the Journal reported. Amazon said at the time that it did not believe the claims were accurate.

Cicilline and other lawmakers had already wondered if Sutton misled Congress during his testimony in 2019.

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