Feds Set To Go After Amazon As FTC Chair Looks For Another Big Tech Scalp After Recent Loss
Fresh from a major loss, US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, who was recently overruled by the US Federal Court in the proposed Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard, is now going after Amazon for anticompetitive behaviour involving marketplace traders.
The issue is understood to be whether Amazon management favour its own products over competitors on its platforms and how it treats outside sellers and merchant partners on Amazon.com.
Amazon officials have been summoned to meet next week with commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission, a meeting that is seen as a final step before the agency files a long-expected antitrust lawsuit against the business that recently saw their stock climb after a record Amazon Prime trading period.
Amazon and the FTC declined to comment.
The move is the clearest sign, yet that FTC Chair Lina Khan intends to soon file an antitrust suit against Amazon. The meeting will be a so-called “last rites” meeting that generally precedes a lawsuit.
If the commission does sue Amazon, it would mark a signature moment in the tenure of FTC Chair Lina Khan, who built her career in part by arguing in a widely read academic paper that Amazon had amassed too much market power and that antitrust law had failed to restrain it.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the commission has been examining Amazon practices for some time.
Exactly which aspects of the business the FTC would target in a potential Amazon lawsuit is not known at this stage.
The lawsuit could challenge an array of the tech giant’s business practices as anticompetitive with insiders tipping that a loss to Amazon could create problems for the anti-business commissioner.
