Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is being called to testify before a House antitrust panel about his company’s treatment of third-party merchants on its site.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating competition in the tech sector, said in a letter to Bezos Friday that he expects the CEO to testify, and threatened issuing a subpoena if he doesn’t comply. The demand follows a Wall Street Journal report that the e-commerce giant used data from third-party sellers on its site to develop competing products.
At issue are statements that an Amazon executive made to the panel while under oath last year.
If the story “is accurate, then statements Amazon made to the Committee about the company’s business practices appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious,” said the letter, which was signed by Representative Jerrold Nadler as well as David Cicilline, the Democratic chairman of the antitrust subcommittee, and Jim Sensenbrenner, the competition panel’s top Republican, among other subcommittee members.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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