Amazon accused the Federal Trade Commission of harassing founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy.
The e commerce giant is fighting the U.S. government’s attempt to question Bezos and Jassy, as part of an investigation into whether Amazon may have used illegal means to automatically subscribe people to Amazon Prime.
In a filing to the Federal Trade Commission dated August 5 but unveiled on Wednesday, Amazon said the company has provided roughly 37,000 documents in response to the probe, and accused the agency of making a “burdensome” legal request.
“An open-ended list of topics on which they have no unique knowledge is grossly unreasonable, unduly burdensome, and calculated to serve no other purpose than to harass Amazon’s highest-ranking executives and disrupt its business operations,” the filing notes.
The company also alleges that FTC staff have been pressured to wrap up the investigation, for which they called for the agency top management to intervene by limiting the scope of the agency’s requests for information and extending the company’s deadline.
Besides several feuds and accusations between Bezos and President Joe Biden, Amazon has struggled with the FTC under Chair Lina Khan, who jumped into fame after her 2017 Yale Law Journal article, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.”
