Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Amenable To Testifying Before House Committee

After legislators had asked that he offer testimony in their antitrust probe into large tech firms, a lawyer for Amazon said that Jeff Bezos would be amenable to testify before Congress. Robert K. Kelner from the Covington & Burling law firm said the retailer was “committed to cooperating with your inquiry and will make the appropriate executive available to testify,” The New York Times reported.

Kelner also noted, “This includes making Jeff Bezos available to testify at a hearing with the other C.E.O.’s this summer.” He noted the chief executive’s availability was subject to the resolution of a number of matters, with the inclusion of scheduling, organization and inquiries regarding an ask for internal paperwork.

The eCommerce retailer had previously resisted making the executive available to the group supervising the antitrust probe, the House Judiciary Committee, which caused legislators to put forward the prospect of having Bezos impelled to offer testimony.

The news comes as Amazon said in Mid-May that it planned to send an “appropriate” executive to offer testimony before Congress regarding how the firm utilizes third-party data, following the time that the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives asked Bezos to appear.

The online shopping retailer encountered allegations that it harnessed the information of its third-party merchants to make rival items. If true, the business procedures of Amazon, “appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious,” a letter signed by Democrat and Republican members of Congress said.

Amazon said in a blog post that it had “been working with the Committee in good faith for nearly a year to provide answers and information, and we remain prepared to make the appropriate Amazon executive available to the Committee to address these issues.”

In the summer of 2019, Nate Sutton, the associate general counsel of Amazon, denied the firm had harvested information from third parties for its own use.