Amazon Meets FTC Regulators As U.S. Considers Antitrust Suit

This morning’s New York Times
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spelled out the possibility of the Federal Trade Commission considering an anti-trust suit on Amazon. Amazon will meet with the F.T.C. chair Lina Khan, which the paper describes as a “last rites” meeting named after the prayers some Christian receive on their deathbed.

Other members at the meeting are said to be Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya who are F.T.C commissioners. The discussions are confidential. However, the story points out that the commission is nearing a decision on whether to move forward with the lawsuit and this meeting is one of the final steps before the commissioners vote on a lawsuit.

The commission has investigated Amazon’s business for years. According to the Times, critics and competitors have argued that the bookstore company has used its retailing clout to squeeze the merchants that use the platform to sell their wares.

U.S. officials have grown increasingly concerned about the influence and retailing reach of giant tech companies like Amazon, Google
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and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The Justice Department has filed several antitrust lawsuits against Google, with two scheduled to go on trial next month. The F.T.C also sued Meta over accusations that it snuffed out young competitors by buying Instagram and WhatsApp.

Amazon has said that it competes aggressively with other retailers and that to regulate its business would only hurt consumers and the business that sell products through its site.

The article points out that Mrs. Khan while a law student at Yale argued that Amazon’s growth represented a failure of American antitrust laws, which she said had become myopically focused on consumer prices as a measure of whether business was violating the law. Amazon’s prices were often low, she wrote in a widely read 2017 paper, but that failed to account for other ways it could bully players across the country according to David McCabe who wrote the New York Times Article.

POSTSCRIPT: Amazon has grown with Andy Jazzy as a new CEO tightening the operation and seeking new ways to attract more business. It is a strong retailer, competing with Walmart
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, Target
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and other superstores. Its quick delivery “prime” system has made Amazon a household word. The F.T.C. lawsuit, if it materializes, will hamper growth, and many shoppers will not know where to obtain the next widget.