Amazon offers testimony to Congress, but doesn't promise Jeff Bezos

Amazon in a letter Friday told House lawmakers it would make the “appropriate” executive available to testify before Congress on whether Amazon lied about its treatment of third-party sellers, but stopped short of explicitly offering the much-sought testimony of CEO Jeff Bezos.

The company’s response sets the stage for what may be the most serious showdown yet between Capitol Hill and one of the world’s tech giants. A bipartisan group of House Judiciary leaders demanded to hear from Bezos about a Wall Street Journal story that found Amazon has used data gleaned from its sellers to launch competing products against them. The report contradicted an Amazon official’s assurances to the committee last year that the company does no such thing.

“We disagree strongly with any suggestion that we have attempted to mislead the Committee or not been cooperative with the investigation,” Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, wrote in the letter, which was addressed to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and members of the House antitrust subcommittee.

“While our teams remain heads down around the clock focused on protecting the health and safety of our employees while continuing to serve customers during the global pandemic, we remain prepared to make the appropriate Amazon executive available to the Committee to address these important issues,” Huseman added.

Leaders of the Judiciary Committee have threatened to subpoena the Amazon CEO, who is also the world’s richest person and the owner of The Washington Post. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who chairs the panel’s antitrust subcommittee, also said earlier this month that he was considering a perjury referral for Amazon.

Cicilline reiterated that threat after receiving Amazon’s letter.

“No one is above the law, no matter how rich or powerful,” he tweeted Friday. “We have asked Mr. Bezos to testify before the US Congress about Amazon’s troubling business practices and false statements, and we expect him to do so. Whether he does so voluntarily or by subpoena is his choice.”

The standoff comes amid tightening scrutiny in Washington for Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, which has seen its sales soar during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats have accused the company of failing to offer its warehouse employees enough virus protections and criticized it for firing workers who had complained about unsafe conditions. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has revived his long-running accusations that preferential postal rates for Amazon are bankrupting the U.S. Postal Service — and he just named a new postmaster general who may be able to help him press for changes.

European regulators are also taking a closer look at the company and other online marketplaces, shifting away from an earlier focus on social media.

The WSJ story touched on another long-running antitrust concern involving Amazon — how it competes with the independent sellers who rely on the company to store or deliver their goods.

Amazon associate general counsel Nate Sutton testified to the committee last year that the company does not “use individual seller data to directly compete with them.” Judiciary leaders told Bezos in a letter this month that if the Journal report is accurate, the testimony is “possibly criminally false or perjurious.”

They added, “Although we expect that you will testify on a voluntary basis, we reserve the right to resort to compulsory process if necessary.”

Though Amazon has disputed the accuracy of the Journal report, Huseman told the committee that the company was nevertheless “deeply troubled to learn of the claims that employees intentionally violated our policy” — which prohibits its workers from accessing certain third party seller data. Amazon has launched an internal investigation and will share its findings with lawmakers, Huseman said.

The company has been at the center of a sweeping investigation by the Judiciary Committee into alleged anti-competitive conduct in the technology sector, a probe that has increasingly zeroed in on Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple.