NY Joins Other States In Amazon Antitrust Probe

New York Attorney General Letitia James is joining in on the investigations into Amazon‘s market power, according to CNet.

James’ office, according to CNet, is partnering with the Federal Trade Commission and California’s attorney general to look into the issue.

This isn’t coming out of nowhere — the New York AG has already been looking into the eCommerce giant for some time, with an April letter chastising the company for the firing of activist Christian Smalls. The letter posited that the company broke the state’s whistleblower laws by firing him, and also may have violated laws on workplace conditions in its warehouses.

The news comes at a time when Amazon and its chief executive, Jeff Bezos, have faced scrutiny over their business practices. Bezos recently appeared alongside the chief executives of Facebook, Apple and Google at a Congressional hearing over the allegedly unfair business practices of those companies that disadvantaged competitors.

Congress, the FTC, the Department of Justice, the European Union and states attorneys general have all levied charges against Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google as of late.

On July 29, Bezos testified before Congress that Amazon was not dominating the competition as his detractors claimed; in fact, the company was just a small part of a large worldwide conglomerate of competition, according to him.

He said the global retail market was “strikingly large and extraordinarily competitive,” PYMNTS reported, and that Amazon accounted for less than 1 percent of the total $25 trillion global market. In the U.S., he said, that number came out to less than 4 percent of the market.

Bezos said large, established players like Costco, Target and Kroger, along with new digital alternatives like Instacart, posed plenty of competition.

Amazon has been doing well for itself during the pandemic, with a recent earnings report showing the vitality of online shopping and Prime viewership.