5 US lawmakers accuse Jeff Bezos of lying to Congress on Amazon’s ‘business practices’

Five US lawmakers have accused Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and other executives of lying to the Congress about firm’s business practices, saying that they are now considering referring Amazon “for criminal investigation”.

The allegations follow an investigation by news agency Reuters that claimed Amazon copied products and rigged its search results in India to boost sales of its own brands.

In a letter to the Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, the members of the US House Judiciary committee wrote that “credible reporting” in the Reuters story and recent articles in several other news outlets “directly contradicts the sworn testimony and representations of Amazon’s top executives – including former CEO Jeffrey Bezos.”

“At best, this reporting confirms that Amazon’s representatives misled the Committee. At worst, it demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress in possible violation of federal criminal law,” Reuters cited the letter as saying.

Amazon, however, has strongly denied the allegations.

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“Amazon and its executives did not mislead the committee, and we have denied and sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question.”

 “As we have previously stated, we have an internal policy, which goes beyond that of any other retailer’s policy that we’re aware of, that prohibits the use of individual seller data to develop Amazon private label products. We investigate any allegations that this policy may have been violated and take appropriate action,” it added.

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Since 2019, the House Judiciary Committee has been investigating competition in digital markets, including how Amazon uses proprietary seller data from its platform, and whether the company unfairly favors its own products.

In sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee last year, Bezos said the company prohibits its employees from using data on individual sellers to benefit its own private-label product lines. In another hearing in 2019, Nate Sutton, Amazon’s associate general counsel, testified that the company does not use such data to create its own branded products or alter its search results to benefit them.

(With inputs from agencies)