June 23, 2026, 20:13 GMT | Insight
The
US Federal Trade Commission hasn't slowed down work on its monopoly lawsuit against Amazon, but the agency is open to settling the case as long as the e-commerce giant agrees to terms the agency believes will benefit consumers, Chairman Andrew Ferguson told MLex.
The US Federal Trade Commission hasn't slowed down work on its monopoly lawsuit against Amazon, but the agency is open to settling the case as long as the e-commerce giant agrees to terms the agency believes will benefit consumers, Chairman Andrew Ferguson told MLex.
"On whether it's a priority, I'll let the docket speak for itself. We have not slowed this case at all since I became chairman, not at all," Ferguson said in an interview. "I spent more money litigating this case than I spent on any one case since I became chairman. It's a very expensive case, it requires tremendous expert spend, and I have made the resources available,"
"Am I opposed to settling this case? No, but it will have to be on terms that protect consumers and are a win for the competition, which is true of every settlement that I get. What that looks like in a complicated case like this, I don't know, but we have not slowed the case at all," he said.
Amazon.com Inc. is accused by the FTC and 17 state attorneys general of being a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.
The FTC claims that Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon. The FTC and states alleged Amazon’s anticompetitive conduct occurs in two markets: the online superstore market that serves shoppers and the market for online marketplace services purchased by sellers.
US District Judge John Chun of the
Western District of Washington has scheduled a trial in the lawsuit to begin March 29 (see
here).
Amazon has long taken issue with the FTC for not specifying the remedies it plans to pursue.
In April, Chun ordered the agency to enumerate “each and every remedy and form of relief” it intends to seek in the monopolization case against Amazon (see
here).
The FTC had argued that requiring a detailed remedy proposal before the trial record was developed and the court made its findings “would result in a premature, costly, and potentially unnecessary hypothetical exercise.” Chun bifurcated the litigation into liability and remedy stages.
The FTC and Amazon also recently sparred over whether the company failed to preserve evidence. Chun said he found it “more likely than not that Amazon spoliated at least some evidence” in the case, but declined to impose sanctions sought by the agency (see
here).
Ferguson said Amazon recently filed nine expert reports in the litigation and will receive the FTC's responses soon.
"Just like in Amazon ROSCA, we settled that during the trial because they held out on me for a long time, and I said we'll see how the trial goes, and finally they came up to the numbers that we said we needed to make consumers whole, in addition to a billion-dollar civil penalty," Ferguson said.
The FTC chairman was referring to Amazon agreeing to pay $2.5 billion to settle the FTC's claims that it deceived consumers into unwittingly signing up for Prime subscriptions, just four days into a lengthy trial (see
here). The FTC alleged that Amazon used illegal "dark patterns" to create problems for consumers trying to cancel their Prime subscriptions, which allegedly violated the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA).
"But the same is true here. I won't maximize a consumer protecting settlement if I slow the litigation or suggest I'm backing off of it. So, we've been full steam ahead, but if I could show you how much money I've had to spend on this 15 months, you would understand that we have not slowed it down at all," Ferguson said. "This is the most expensive case I have."
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Tags
Sections:
Antitrust, Technology
Industries:
Consumer Products, Computing & Information Technology, Retail & Wholesale Trade, Digital Economy, Electronic Commerce
Geographies:
North America, United States
Topics:
Market Abuse, Market Manipulation, Section 2 Sherman Act