Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, which revealed Amazon, sometimes under the direction of CEO Jeff Bezos, enlisted hundred-person teams to copy and crush specific competitors in e-commerce.

“In July, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos swore before the House Antitrust Subcommittee that Amazon had a policy against copying and crushing its competitors. Today, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon not only leveraged its monopoly power to steal valuable trade practices from competitors like Wayfair, but also that Bezos was directly involved,” said Sarah Miller, Executive Director of the American Economic Liberties Project. 

“As antimonopoly leaders like Congressman David Cicilline, scholar Lina Khan, and others have argued for years, Amazon’s corporate strategy is built on monopolization and abusing independent businesses,” added Miller. “With mounting factual evidence to support this thesis, Congress must move forward with the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s recommendations to break up Amazon in 2021.”

For more information, read Economic Liberties’ “Understanding Amazon” here. 

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Economic Liberties 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.