Jousting with Congress over Bezos testimony, Amazon says it will send ‘the appropriate’ executive

Anyone eager for Jeff Bezos’ moment in the Congressional hot seat, previously occupied by the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, probably shouldn’t hold their breath.

Amazon sidestepped the request from House lawmakers for its CEO to testify, saying in a letter that it will “make the appropriate Amazon executive available” to address antitrust concerns.

The antitrust subcommittee is jousting with Amazon over prior testimony from a top company lawyer, Nate Sutton, who said during a 2019 antitrust hearing that Amazon does not use individual seller data when developing products for its private label brand. A recent Wall Street Journal investigation revealed the opposite, putting Amazon in a predicament with federal lawmakers.

Elected officials and regulators are concerned that the company is using data hoovered up by its massive e-commerce operation to enhance its power and hamper competition.

Leaders on the left, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, claim Amazon’s dual position as both a first-party seller and operator of a third-party marketplace creates an unfair advantage. In her words, “you can’t be an umpire and own one of the teams that’s in the game.”

Amazon has long said that it does not use individual seller data — like the price of an item and how well it sells — to inform the development of private-label products. The Wall Street Journal report documented cases where Amazon employees did use that type of data when developing new products, despite a company policy that prohibits the practice.

“As with any other employee policy at Amazon, we take the policy seriously, we train extensively on it, leadership reinforces that training, we audit for compliance, we examine allegations of breaches of the policy, and we iterate and improve based on what we learn,” Amazon said in its letter. “We do all of this solely in order to promote and enhance third party sellers’ trust in Amazon, trust that we know is essential to our business.”

Seven members of the House Judiciary Committee, representing Democrats and Republicans, asked Bezos to answer for alleged inconsistencies between Sutton’s testimony and the Wall Street Journal report. The request was voluntary but the representatives said they “reserve the right to resort to compulsory process if necessary.”

Amazon is fielding a number of inquiries about its competitive behavior in the U.S. and abroad. The coronavirus crisis does not appear to be slowing down the House investigation into Big Tech’s dominance, although it isn’t clear how hearings could proceed while complying with social distancing measures. The process could also take a backseat to the general election in November.