Jeff Bezos will testify to the U.S. House panel about allegations that Amazon uses data from its own third-party sellers to create competing products.
The mogul received a letter from The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on May 1st, signed by Democratic and Republican members. It refers to the investigation published by the Wall Street Journal on April 23rd.
The article, penned by Dana Mattioli, was titled “Amazon Scooped Up Data From Its Own Sellers to Launch Competing Products” and provided testimonials from 20 former Amazon employees. It contradicted the statement that Amazon’s associate general counsel, Nate Sutton, made under oath back in July 2019, swearing that the company has never used sensitive business information from independent sellers to develop and trade its own products.
“If the reporting in the Wall Street Journal article is accurate, then statements Amazon made to the committee about the company’s business practices appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious, ” the panel’s letter reads.
The letter was signed by Democrats: the chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the antitrust subcommittee David Cicilline, the representatives Joe Neguse and Pramila Jayapal; as well as by Republican representatives James Sensenbrenner, Ken Buck, and Matt Gaetz.
