House Judiciary Threatens Subpoena in Seeking Amazon CEO Testimony

The House Judiciary Committee expects Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify about company data collection and competition concerns, a bipartisan group wrote the e-commerce giant Friday. Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., signed the letter with House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., and subcommittee ranking member Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. Reps. Ken Buck, R-Colo.; Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.; Joe Neguse, D-Colo.; and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., also signed. The group cited recent reports the company allegedly uses seller data to build products that compete with third-party sellers on the platform (see 2004300054) and contradictory testimony from Amazon Associate General Counsel Nate Sutton. The letter threatens subpoena authority if Bezos doesn’t testify voluntarily. Amazon must be accountable for its “record of dishonesty before Congress,” Cicilline said. "As we told the Wall Street Journal and explained in our testimony, we strictly prohibit employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch," an Amazon spokesperson said. "While we don’t believe these claims made in the Journal story are accurate, we take these allegations very seriously and have launched an internal investigation."