Diana Moss was quoted in the August 16, 2017 The Street story What Could President Trump Actually Do to Amazon and Jeff Bezos?
Leaving aside the political context of Trump’s accusations, suing Amazon for antitrust violations would require meeting a difficult and daunting set of criteria, said Diana L. Moss , president of the American Antitrust Institute, a non-profit organization that promotes competition on behalf of consumers and businesses.
“It’s a heavy lift,” Moss said in a phone interview from Washington. “You have to prove that it’s a monopoly, and that the monopolist has used its market power to extend or maintain that monopoly to the detriment of competition. There would have to be strong proof from market participants that Amazon engaged in exclusionary practices, and the government would have to be pretty concerned about its conduct in many of the markets that it participates in.”
“It would add a layer of murk and distortion to what is supposed to be an independent process by the antitrust agencies,” Moss said. “Political motivations for enforcement of the anti-trust laws really have no business in our system. Interference by the White House or any politically motivated stakeholder deprives consumers, innovators, and the business community of due process.”
