Did Jeff Bezos Lie To Congress Over Data Practices? Legislators Demand Answers From Amazon

Five members of the House Judiciary Committee’s anti-trust subcommittee are demanding that Amazon.com AMZN produce “exculpatory evidence” that would affirm the honesty of testimony provided by former CEO Jeff Bezos and other company executives during congressional hearings held in 2019 and 2020.

What Happened: According to a Wall Street Journal report, a bipartisan group of legislators sent a letter on Oct. 17 Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Sunday seeking further clarification on testimony relating to how Amazon used data from third-party sellers for developing private-label products.

“We strongly encourage you to make use of this opportunity to correct the record and provide the Committee with sworn, truthful, and accurate responses to this request as we consider whether a referral of this matter to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation is appropriate,” the legislators wrote in their letter.

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Why It Happened: The letter cited Bezos’ July 2020 testimony, the July 2019 testimony of Associate General Counsel Nate Sutton and correspondence from David Zapolsky, the company’s general counsel, and Brian Huseman, the vice president for public policy. The legislators noted media coverage contradicted the testimony provided under oath with reports that Amazon used third-party data to reverse engineer bestsellers under their own brands, with an Amazon employee reportedly insisting this was “standard operating procedure.”

“At best, this reporting confirms that Amazon misled the Committee,” the letter stated. “At worst, it demonstrates that Amazon may have lied to Congress.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO), David Cicilline (D-RI), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

An Amazon spokesman told the Journal internal policy prevents the use of individual seller data for developing Amazon-branded products, adding that it has “denied and sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question.”

Photo: National Museum of American History / Flickr Creative Commons.