FTC Says Staffing Cuts Could Delay Amazon Trial

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says staffing cuts could delay its case against Amazon.

As CNBC reported Wednesday (March 12), attorneys for the regulator have asked a judge to hold off on the start of a trial into whether Amazon had tricked customers into signing up for the company’s Prime program.

The reason? Staging and budget shortfalls, Jonathan Cohen, an attorney for the FTC, told Judge John Chun during a status hearing in federal court in Seattle ahead of the trial, which had been scheduled to begin Sept. 22.

“We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on our case team,” Cohen said, asking the judge for a two-month continuance.

As the CNBC report noted, the agency’s request is happening as the White House’s new Department of Government Efficiency is pushing to reduce spending, an effort that has included layoffs of tens of thousands of federal employees.

The judge asked Cohen how the FTC’s situation “will be different in two months” if the regulator is “in crisis now, as far as resources.”

Cohen replied by saying that he “cannot guarantee if things won’t be even worse.” He even said it’s possible that the FTC may have to move to another office “unexpectedly,” which could hinder its ability to prepare for the trial.

“But there’s a lot of reason to believe … we may have been through the brunt of it, at least for a little while,” Cohen said.

As PYMNTS reported last month, the FTC has of late made moves that suggest that the business world’s hopes that the Trump administration would take a more relaxed approach to regulation may be unfounded.

For example, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said last month the agency would continue to use the merger guidelines established by the commission and Department of Justice in 2023.

The same day, Ferguson named David Shaw as the FTC’s principal deputy director, describing him as “an experienced antitrust lawyer with expertise in high-stakes litigation and contentious merger review.”

The FTC sued Amazon in June of 2023, alleging that the tech giant had employed practices that “tricked and trapped”customers into signing up for Prime recurring subscriptions.

The suit argued that Amazon has used “dark patterns” to dupe consumers into enrolling into the program, while also making it difficult to cancel their subscriptions.

The regulator also alleged that while Amazon had revamped its cancellation process for at least some subscribers, “the primary purpose of the Prime cancellation process was not to enable subscribers to cancel, but rather to thwart them.”

Amazon has said the FTC’s case has no merit, and — per the CNBC report — also opposed the agency’s request to delay the trial.