By Electronic Mail

June 14, 2020

The Honorable Jerrold Nadler
Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. House of Representatives
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Jim Jordan
Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. House of Representatives
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable David Cicilline
Chairman
Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial,
and Administrative Law
Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial,
and Administrative Law
Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairmen Nadler and Cicilline and Ranking Members Jordan and Sensenbrenner:
This letter responds to the June 11 email we received from your staff regarding the
Committee’s investigation into competition in digital markets. Amazon appreciates the
opportunity to respond and is committed to cooperating with your inquiry.
As you know, Amazon has cooperated extensively with the Committee’s
investigation. On October 13, 2019, we provided detailed, written responses to each of
Chairman Cicilline’s 158 Questions for the Record. Those questions sought detailed information
on an extraordinarily wide range of complex topics spanning much of Amazon’s business.
Notwithstanding the substantial burden imposed by the Committee’s very short deadline to
respond to those voluminous requests, Amazon marshalled significant resources to prepare and
submit its responses—which spanned nearly 70 pages—to meet the Committee’s original
deadline.
We have continued to work diligently since that time to respond to the dozens of
document requests and additional information requests set out in the Committee’s
September 13, 2019 letter. Collectively, those requests were extraordinarily broad in scope by
historical standards. Many of the requests had no date restriction whatsoever. To date, we have
made 17 productions in response to those requests comprising over 225,000 pages.
We have been closely engaged with Committee staff throughout, and consistent with the
Committee’s guidance we completed our initial response to the Committee’s “Request A,” which
included nine separate requests and 64 subparts, on December 14, 2019. Together with our

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Page 2

supplemental productions following discussions with the European Commission, Amazon’s
response to Request A alone included:


Complete filings submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) under the
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act for 13 transactions dating to 2008, including all documents
submitted in response to Voluntary Access Letters for four of those transactions;



Thousands of documents submitted to the FTC in connection with the agency’s
second review of an Amazon acquisition in 2010; and



Dozens of submissions to foreign competition regulators, including responses to the
European Commission in connection with its ongoing investigation of Amazon’s
marketplace.

Likewise, while our response to the 38 separate requests set out in the Committee’s
“Request B” is ongoing, we have made regular biweekly productions to the Committee since
completing our response to Request A. These productions have included thousands of pages of
highly confidential, business-sensitive communications involving Amazon’s most senior
executives. In sum, to date, Amazon’s continuing production of information and very sensitive,
nonpublic corporate documents has been extraordinary, in the face of historically broad and
burdensome demands by the Committee. We are nearing the completion of Amazon’s
anticipated response to Request B, and we expect to make yet another production of documents
in the next week.
It is also important to note that, although you suggest that the Committee has now
narrowed its expansive list of requests, a number of the items you identified in your email
appear to expand the scope of the Committee’s original requests. For example, whereas the
Committee’s September 13, 2019 letter sought communications between named Amazon
executives regarding the results of seller polls, your email appears to call for the production of
seller poll results never communicated to a relevant executive. Likewise, requests that
previously called for communications regarding Amazon’s policies governing certain activities
have now been rewritten to seek communications regarding the activities themselves. As with
the prior expansions of the scope of the Committee’s requests we have accommodated, these
changes make it more challenging to satisfy all of the Committee’s shifting demands, especially
on the new timetable you have announced. While it is not reasonably possible to respond to
these modified and expanded requests by June 25, we remain committed to continuing
reasonable efforts to review and produce documents responsive to those requests.
As you know, we have also raised serious concerns about producing documents that, if
shared with Amazon’s competitors through public release or otherwise, could severely damage
Amazon’s competitive position, and we have asked the Committee to provide an assurance that
such documents, if produced, would not be publicly released. Our understanding remains that
the Committee believes it is unable to commit to maintaining the confidentiality of all highly
sensitive material it receives, including material Amazon has already produced. And while the
Committee has made various proposals in response to these serious concerns, those proposals to
date have not included any binding commitment that the Committee would treat highly
sensitive business documents as confidential. As we have discussed, this is in stark contrast to
the confidentiality assurances that attend investigations by competition authorities in the
United States and in many other countries. As a result, Amazon remains deeply concerned that

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you cannot assure that the most sensitive corporate documents reflecting business strategy and
other competitively sensitive information would be withheld from its many competitors.
Finally, with respect to a hearing, as we have stated throughout, we are committed to
cooperating with your inquiry and will make the appropriate executive available to testify. This
includes making Jeff Bezos available to testify at a hearing with the other CEOs this summer. Of
course, we will need to resolve a number of questions regarding timing, format, and outstanding
document production issues, all necessarily framed by the extraordinary demands of the global
pandemic. In addition, we think it bears emphasizing that other senior executives now run the
businesses that are the actual subject of the Committee’s investigation. We look forward to
continuing our good faith discussion with the Committee to resolve these important issues.
Respectfully submitted,

Robert K. Kelner