Amazon requests FTC chair recuse herself from antitrust investigations

Amazon sent a request to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday asking its new chair Lina Khan be recused from any antitrust investigations into the company because of her past critiques of the e-commerce giant.

Khan first gained attention for a paper she wrote called “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” while she was a law student at Yale. She has since written several pieces detailing the company’s alleged abuses of monopoly power and assisted the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust with its investigation into digital marketplaces.  

The new FTC chair “has on numerous occasions argued that Amazon is guilty of antitrust violations and should be broken up,” Amazon said in the petition. “These statements convey to any reasonable observer the clear impression that she has already made up her mind about many material facts relevant to Amazon’s antitrust culpability as well as about the ultimate issue of culpability itself.” 

A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment on the request.

The regulatory agency is reviewing Amazon’s proposed $8.45 billion acquisition of the movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.