The antitrust probe on Amazon.Com Inc. was revamped by the US Federal Trade Commission as the investigative team re-interviewed the potential witnesses and asked about the company’s acquisition of MGM Studios recently.
More into it matter
FTC has been watching Amazon since 2019 over concerns about the company’s cloud computing and retail business. The new chair Lina Khan had, who made the headlines last year after her groundbreaking legal papers about the potential antitrust violations by Amazon, has taken a personal interest in the probe.
She has assigned the case to former Justice Department prosecutor and antitrust professor John Newman, who has joined as Deputy Director of Competition with FTC in December and has reorganized the investigating team probing Amazon. The agency and Amazon declined a request for comment on the reorganization.
During President Trump’s tenure, FTC had prioritized the antitrust investigation on Facebook and had only assigned two lawyers to the Amazon case.
Khan worked as a staffer in the House Judiciary antitrust committee before joining FTC from the Columbia Law School. She spent 16 months investigating Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Google, and Meta Platforms Inc. Her focus on Google led to the Panel 449-page report. At the same time, another FTC colleague looked into the Amazon probe.
Until last summer, FTC could not break new progress from the already published congressional report. After taking charge, Khan helped draft questions for investigators. Since then, the FTC legal team has zeroed in on Amazon Web Services, the lucrative cloud computing business, and the MGM Studio acquisition. Amazon said it closed the MGM Studio deal in March when FTC’s deal review expired.
FTC, at that time, declined to comment on the closing of the MGM deal but had stated that it did not approve the transaction and, in the future, will challenge it if it is determined that it violated the law.
FTC lawyers ask questions about whether the MGM deal would impact the Amazon Prime stream video service. Amazon tried to sideline Khan, saying her past work should prevent her from taking it up in FTC against the company. The agency rejected a similar proposal for recusal by Facebook.
The FTC is not the only regulator focusing on Amazon. In January, the company paid a $2.25 million fine in response to an investigation on antitrust price-fixing by the Washington State Attorney-general. The company also agreed to shutter a program where it decided to third-party sellers without competing with them.
Karl Racine, the District of Colombia attorney, had sued Amazon with allegations that the online retailer charged higher than required consumer prices. This policy guaranteed Amazon a minimum profit from each item sold and discouraged other merchants on their site from offering products elsewhere at lower prices.
