Executives at Amazon, including the company’s founder Jeff Bezos, may have misled or lied to Congress about the firm’s business practices

According to top US lawmakers, the eCommerce giant executives may have forged the company’s business practices after presenting them to Congress. The members of the House Judiciary Committee now say they are considering referring Amazon “for criminal investigation”.

The claims follow an investigation by Reuters that stated Amazon copied products and rigged its search results in India to boost sales of its own brands .

Amazon strongly denies the allegations.

On Monday, five members of the US House Judiciary Committee wrote to Amazon boss Andy Jassy, who took the top job from Jeff Bezos in July.

The lawmakers said “credible reporting” by Reuters and recent articles in other news outlets “directly contradicts the sworn testimony and representations of Amazon’s top executives – including former CEO Jeffrey Bezos”.

Investigations continue into Amazon

Since 2019, the House Judiciary Committee has been investigating competition in digital markets, including how Amazon uses third party seller data from its platform.

In sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee’s anti-trust subcommittee in 2020, Jeff Bezos stated that Amazon “forbids” employees using data on individual sellers to benefit Amazon’s own-brand product lines.