Amazon is facing a massive antitrust lawsuit from Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission, the fourth and largest attempt to dismantle the massive e-commerce giant.
According to a Bloomberg report, the FTC is planning to file a lawsuit against Amazon’s online retail store, claiming it reward sellers that also use Amazon’s logistics services, while punishing those who don’t.
Third-party merchants pay Amazon a sales commission, as well as for various other logistics, such as advertising, shipping, and warehousing.
The FTC will allege that Amazon’s algorithm places merchant’s products at a competitive disadvantage if they aren’t using Amazon’s entire suite of services.
According to two sources that spoke to Bloomberg, Khan (pictured below) has been “honing the complaint for several months, finalising key details such as where to file suit.”
It is likely the FTC will move to have Amazon split up its business, which will obviously be the beginning of years of courtroom battling.
Last week, the FTC filed a suit claiming Amazon “duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime”, then made it nigh on impossible to cancel the subscription.
Amazon has been building up its defence with former, disgruntled members of the FTC.
“If you’re preparing for war, hiring people who used to work for the opposing army is a good way to gather intelligence,” Jeff Hauser, founder of the Revolving Door Project, told On The Money.
So far, Amazon has hired FTC attorney Brian Huseman; former FTC attorney in the Competition Bureau Amy Posner, who is now Amazon’s senior corporate counsel; former FTC attorney Sean Pugh, who is now a senior manager in public policy, former senior attorney at the FTC Andi Arias, who is now corporate counsel; former legal expert in the Bureau of Competition Meghan Iorianni, who is now senior policy counsel; former FTC attorney Brian Berggren who is now corporate counsel; FTC’s former antitrust attorney Stelios Xenakis; former FTC attorney advisor Pallavi Guniganti; and former attorney in anticompetitive practices Aaron Ross.