Amazon lied to Congress about its spend of third-celebration vendor knowledge, the Dwelling Judiciary Committee acknowledged nowadays. In a letter to the Division of Justice, the committee chairs requested prosecutors to evaluate the company for criminal obstruction of Congress.

“Amazon lied through a senior govt’s sworn testimony that Amazon failed to spend any of the troves of information it had soundless on its third-celebration sellers to compete with them,” the letter says (emphasis in the distinctive).

The committee acknowledged that not handiest became once Amazon’s sworn testimony knowingly incorrect nonetheless that repeated attempts to accumulate Amazon to correct the describe or to provide evidence to substantiate its claims had been both rebuffed or not well-liked.

“Amazon has declined extra than one alternatives to explain with credible evidence that it made honest and total representations,” the letter says. “Amazon’s failure to correct or corroborate these representations means that Amazon and its executives accumulate acted deliberately to improperly influence, obstruct, or obstruct the Committee’s investigation and inquiries.”

Congress held a chain of hearings as phase of a 16-month antitrust investigation that scrutinized the practices of Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook, now identified as Meta. All the diagram through these hearings, lawmakers wondered Amazon executives about whether third-celebration vendor knowledge became once broken-all of the diagram in which down to fabricate non-public-label products or to privilege its own products in search results.

“We cease not spend any vendor knowledge to compete with [third parties],” Nate Sutton, affiliate general counsel for opponents, advised Congress in sworn testimony in July 2019. “We cease not spend any of that recount vendor knowledge in growing our own non-public trace products.”

But as nowadays’s letter aspects out, subsequent investigations by The Wall Boulevard Journal, Reuters, and The Markup revealed that not handiest did Amazon workers engaged on non-public-label items accumulate access to 3rd-celebration knowledge, nonetheless they routinely broken-down it, even discussing it overtly in conferences. “Amazon workers on a on daily foundation foundation violated the coverage—and senior officers knew it.”

After reading these experiences, Congress gave Amazon a probability to correct the describe or provide evidence that might perhaps perhaps perhaps corroborate the testimonies. As a replacement, Amazon denied that there had been any complications. The corporate acknowledged that the experiences from The Wall Boulevard Journal, Reuters, and The Markup had been “inaccurate” and contained “key misunderstandings and hypothesis.”

Amazon’s attorneys advised lawmakers in subsequent communications that the company acknowledged that it had performed an inner investigation that didn’t fetch any evidence of workers misusing third-celebration vendor knowledge. Amazon furthermore acknowledged that the difficulty’s search engine didn’t prioritize its own products. Amazon’s attorneys refused handy over documents connected to the interior investigation.

“With out producing any evidence to the contrary, Amazon has left standing what appear to be incorrect and deceptive statements to the Committee. It has refused to flip over trade documents or communications that might perhaps perhaps perhaps both corroborate its claims or correct the describe. And it appears to accumulate performed so to hide the very fact about its spend of third-celebration sellers’ knowledge,” the letter acknowledged.

“Consequently, we have not any different nonetheless to refer this subject to the Division of Justice to evaluate whether Amazon and its executives obstructed Congress in violation of appropriate federal regulation.”