House Judiciary Committee calls on Bezos to testify as part of antitrust probe

Members of the House Judiciary Committee are calling on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify before the panel over concerns his deputies may have misled Congress in testimony about their use of data from third-party sellers. 

In a letter sent to Bezos on Friday, the lawmakers cited a Wall Street Journal report that said the company had used sensitive business data from third-party sellers on the website to create competing products.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers — which include Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) — raised concerns that Amazon associate general counsel Nate Sutton may have lied to Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee in July when he asserted the company does “not use their individual [seller] data when we’re making decisions to launch private brands.”

“If these allegations are true, then Amazon exploited its role as the largest online marketplace in the U.S. to appropriate the sensitive commercial data of individual marketplace sellers and then used that data to compete directly with those sellers,” they wrote to Bezos, who has never testified before Congress.   

“Amazon has responded to this report by describing the Amazon employees’ conduct as a violation of its formal policy against the use of non-public, individual seller data. The report, however, details that Amazon employees described pulling competitors’ data as ‘standard operating procedure’ when making products such as electronics, suitcases, sporting goods or other lines.”

The lawmakers are reserving the right to issue a subpoena if Bezos does not voluntarily testify.

“Pretty straight forward. Amazon reps made suspicious statements that might be lies,” Gaetz told The Hill. “We want Bezos to come discuss.”

While members on both sides of the aisle are calling for Bezos to appear before the panel, not all members are on board. 

“Jeff Bezos has been Cicilline’s white whale this entire time,” one source familiar with the investigation told The Hill.  “He’ll do anything, including launch various allegations about the company to get a … political spectacle.” 

Amazon did not respond to requests for comment on the committee’s request.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing interviews with 20 former employees of Amazon’s private-label business and a review of documents, that the online retail giant used the information from other sellers to price items, determine which features to copy or whether to enter a product segment based on its earning potential.

The reporting seems to directly contradict testimony by Sutton, who when asked by Jayapal about practices like those detailed in the Journal’s story said that “we do not use any seller data to compete with them.”

In response to a follow-up question from Cicilline, Sutton testified that “we do not use their individual data when we’re making decisions to launch private brands.”

A spokesperson for Amazon told The Hill that the company “strictly prohibit[s] employees from using non-public, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch.”

“While we don’t believe these claims made by the Wall Street Journal are accurate, we take these allegations very seriously and have launched an internal investigation.” 

Amazon began making its own products in 2007, starting with the Kindle e-reader.

Its private-label business now includes more than 45 brands with roughly 243,000 products, including Amazon Basics and Stone & Beam furniture.

The House Judiciary Committee, along with the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, are already conducting antitrust investigations of large technology companies, including Amazon.

The lawmakers wrote in their letter to Bezos that his compliance would be “vital to the Committee, as part of its critical work investigating and understanding competition issues in the digital market, that Amazon respond to these and other critical questions concerning competition issues in digital markets.”

Tension between Amazon operating the retail platform and selling products on it has already drawn antitrust scrutiny elsewhere.

The European Union’s top antitrust regulator said last year it was probing whether Amazon was gaining an advantage from its dual role as a marketplace operator and seller of its own products.

–Updated at 4:20pm