AMAZON.COM, INC. SHAREHOLDER CLASS ACTION ALERT: Bernstein Liebhard LLP Announces that a Securities Class Action Lawsuit Has Been Filed Against Amazon.com, Inc

Bernstein Liebhard LLP announces that a securities class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of investors who purchased or acquired the common stock of Amazon.com, Inc. between February 1, 2019 and April 5, 2022, inclusive (the “Class Period”). The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington and alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

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.

Plaintiff alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made misleading statements about Amazon’s business because: (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; and (iii) Amazon’s revenues derived from its private-label business were in part the product of impermissible conduct and, thus, unsustainable.

On or around June 3, 2019, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary (the “House Judiciary Committee”) 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, 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.

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.

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, the price of Amazon stock price declined 3.2% to close at $3,175.12 per share on April 6, 2022.

If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than July 5, 2022. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn’t require that you serve as lead plaintiff. If you choose to take no action, you may remain an absent class member.

If you purchased AMZN common stock, and/or would like to discuss your legal rights and options please visit Amazon.com, Inc. Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or pallocco@bernlieb.com.

Since 1993, Bernstein Liebhard LLP has recovered over $3.5 billion for its clients. In addition to representing individual investors, the Firm has been retained by some of the largest public and private pension funds in the country to monitor their assets and pursue litigation on their behalf. As a result of its success litigating hundreds of lawsuits and class actions, the Firm has been named to The National Law Journal’s “Plaintiffs’ Hot List” thirteen times and listed in The Legal 500 for ten consecutive years.

Contact Information:

Peter Allocco
Bernstein Liebhard LLP
https://www.bernlieb.com
(212) 951-2030
pallocco@bernlieb.com