(Financial Times) SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon is attempting to have Lina Khan, the new head of the United States Federal Trade Commission, recuse herself from any investigations involving the corporation, citing her previous work and criticism of the company. Khan had “already made up her mind” that Amazon was a threat to competition, according to a petition filed with the regulator on Wednesday. Khan had built her “academic and professional career in large part by finding Amazon guilty for violating the antitrust rules,” according to the petition. The FTC’s representative claimed the agency had no comment. Following her confirmation as commissioner, Joe Biden selected Khan as FTC head earlier this month, signaling the administration’s intention to push aggressively against Big Tech’s dominance. She gained to notoriety after the release of her Yale Law Review thesis, The Amazon Antitrust Paradox, in 2017, which criticized Amazon’s stance as both a logistics supplier and a rival to Amazon.com sellers. According to the complaint, viewed by the Financial Times, “these words convey to any reasonable observer the distinct impression that she has already made up her mind about several key facts essential to Amazon’s antitrust culpability as well as regarding the ultimate issue of culpability itself.” During the House of Representatives judiciary committee’s antitrust probe into technology corporations, Khan also served as counsel. Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, highlighted the question of impartiality and Big Tech during Khan’s Senate confirmation hearing in April, citing a 1966 court judgment disqualifying then-FTC head Paul Rand Dixon from a lawsuit owing to his previous work with a House subcommittee. In response, Khan stated, “Let me state up front, I have none of the financial conflicts or personal links that are the basis for recusal under federal ethics standards.” “I’d approach these difficulties with a focus on the underlying facts.” On Wednesday, Democratic congressman David Cicilline, the chairman of the House antitrust subcommittee, said of Amazon’s attempt to recuse itself: “When a firm wields such great economic and political clout, this becomes an issue. It’s a degree of hubris that’s difficult to comprehend.” Khan’s previous work, according to Amazon, would deprive the firm of a fair process in current and future inquiries, which are expected to include an investigation of Amazon’s recent $8.45 billion acquisition of MGM. In a statement, the business said: “Amazon, like other huge corporations, should be evaluated. Even major corporations, however, have the right to an independent investigation.” “It would be appropriate for chair Khan to announce that she will recuse herself in all cases against Amazon that consider factual issues she purports to have determined in her academic articles, her public advocacy publications, or the [House] majority staff rep,” Thomas Morgan, an antitrust professor at George Washington University, wrote in a declaration attached to Amazon’s filing. “In my opinion, it would be proper for her fellow commissioners to direct her to recuse herself if she does not do so freely,” he said. Other antitrust experts, on the other hand, predicted that Amazon’s attempt would fail. “It’s worth a shot,” said Chris Sagers, a law professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. “But it seems like a really unusual scenario.” According to William Kovacic, a former FTC chair, government and agency ethics bodies would have “examined these problems for Khan extensively when she was nominated.”/n
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