Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to new reporting from Reuters that reveals that Amazon ran a systematic campaign to steal trade secrets, create knockoff products, and manipulate Amazon search results to boost its own product lines in India.

“Amazon is a pernicious corporate gatekeeper built to lie, cheat, and steal,” said Nidhi Hegde, Director of Strategy and Programs at the American Economic Liberties Project and Co-Lead of its Access to Markets Initiative. “For years, many brave independent businesses and entrepreneurs warned us that Amazon was systematically stealing their intellectual property and trade secrets. Dogged reporters from The Wall Street Journal and Reuters made internal Amazon documents supporting these claims public, making Amazon’s crimes apparent to all who looked. Yet when Congress questioned Amazon executives, including Jeff Bezos himself, they were met with disrespect, obfuscation, and outright dishonesty.”

“If we are serious about reviving innovation and entrepreneurship, breaking up Amazon is the only path forward,” added Hegde.

Read “Understanding Amazon: Making the 21st-Century Gatekeeper Safe for Democracy” here.

Learn more about Access to Markets here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.