Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., a nationally recognized stockholder rights law firm, reminds investors that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: AMZN) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington on behalf of all persons and entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Amazon securities between February 1, 2019 and April 5, 2022, both dates inclusive (the “Class Period”). Investors have until July 5, 2022 to apply to the Court to be appointed as lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
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Amazon is a multinational technology company that engages primarily in the businesses of e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.
On the Company’s Amazon.com e-commerce platform, Amazon sells both third-party merchandise and Amazon’s own private-label products. As the owner and operator of the Amazon.com e-commerce platform, Amazon has access to certain non-public data of the third-party sellers that use the Amazon.com platform.
On or around June 3, 2019, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary initiated a bipartisan investigation into the state of competition online. The investigation, led by the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law (the “Subcommittee”), examined the business practices and market dominance of Facebook, Google, Apple, and, of particular relevance, Amazon (the “Subcommittee Investigation”).
In the course of the Subcommittee Investigation, the Subcommittee held several oversight hearings in which various officers of the above referenced companies, including their respective Chief Executive Officers, offered witness testimony on topics such as the effect of market power on the press, innovation, and privacy, and the market dominance of the firms under investigation. After each of the hearings, members of the Subcommittee submitted questions for the record to the witnesses.
The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s business, operations, and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Amazon engaged in anticompetitive conduct in its private-label business practices, including giving Amazon products preference over those of its competitors and using third-party sellers’ non-public data to compete with them; (ii) the foregoing exposed Amazon to a heightened risk of regulatory scrutiny and/or enforcement actions; (iii) Amazon’s revenues derived from its private-label business were in part the product of impermissible conduct and thus unsustainable; and (iv) as a result, the Defendants’ public statements throughout the Class Period were materially false and/or misleading.
On March 9, 2022, media outlets reported that the House Judiciary Committee had requested that the U.S. Department of Justice open a criminal investigation into Amazon and certain of its executives for allegedly lying to Congress about its business practices during the course of the Subcommittee Investigation.
In response, Amazon asserted that there was “no factual basis” for the House Judiciary Committee’s allegations.
Then, on April 6, 2022, The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “SEC Is Investigating How Amazon Disclosed Business Practices.” The article reported, inter alia, that the SEC’s probe has been underway for more than a year and focuses on Amazon’s disclosures regarding its use of third-party seller data for its own private-label business.
On this news, Amazon’s stock price fell $105.98 per share, or 3.2%, to close at $3,175.12 per share on April 6, 2022.
If you purchased or otherwise acquired Amazon shares and suffered a loss, are a long-term stockholder, have information, would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Brandon Walker or Alexandra Raymond by email at investigations@bespc.com, telephone at (212) 355-4648, or by filling out this contact form. There is no cost or obligation to you.
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Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is a nationally recognized law firm with offices in New York, California, and South Carolina. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in commercial, securities, derivative, and other complex litigation in state and federal courts across the country. For more information about the firm, please visit www.bespc.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
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