CAIT is vindicated by screaming headlines across American media that a bipartisan group of members of the US House Judiciary Committee has made public its stinging letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) probes "potentially criminal conduct by Amazon and its senior executives".
The 24-page letter by US lawmakers confirms in gory detail how Amazon engaged in a "pattern and practice" of misleading conduct that was designed to "influence, obstruct, or impede" the Committee's 16-month investigation into competition in digital markets.
CAIT National President B.C. Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that the CAIT has also taken note of the summary posted by the highly-respected antitrust subcommittee chair David N. Cicilline stating that in the testimony before the Committee, a senior Amazon official wrongly represented that Amazon does not use the data it collects on its third-party sellers to compete with them and does not list its products before third-party products in customer search results.
"Credible investigations demonstrate the opposite."
"Amazon attempted to clean up the inaccurate testimony through ever-shifting explanations of its internal policies and denials of the investigative reports. It described the reports as based on 'key misunderstandings and speculation' that led to 'inaccurate conclusions'. The Committee uncovered evidence from former Amazon employees, and former and current sellers, that corroborated the reports claims," Rep. Cicilline has said, rightly.
Bhartia and Khandelwal said "now that the 24-page letter is in public domain, it is incumbent upon Indian regulatory agencies to wake up and take immediate cognizance on how Amazon engaged in a 'pattern and practice' of misleading conduct that appeared designed to 'influence, obstruct, or impede' the Committee's 16-month investigation into competition in digital markets."
(With inputs from IANS)
