Jeff Bezos and Amazon board sued in row around satellites to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink

Amazon has been accused of disregarding a “glaring conflict of interest” when awarding hundreds of thousands and thousands of dollars in rocket contracts to a business owned by Jeff Bezos.

A lawsuit submitted by an Amazon shareholder accuses the e-commerce giant’s board of performing “in negative faith” immediately after handing a deal to Mr Bezos’s rocket business, Blue Origin, soon after considerably less than 40 minutes of dialogue.

Amazon is planning to launch a huge network of more than 3,000 satellites that will give world-wide-web accessibility all over the globe.

As aspect of the plan, it must deal rocket companies to hearth its satellites into house.

Amazon has presently compensated about $1.7bn to 3 businesses, including $585m to Mr Bezos’s Blue Origin. Its other contracts are with France’s Arianespace and United Start Alliance.

The Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund, which is bringing the lawsuit, stated the rocket launch contract was the “second largest” in Amazon’s history, soon after its $13.7bn takeover of Whole Foods.

The authorized assert alleges the company’s audit committee “inexplicably” did not consider awarding the deal to rival billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, inspite of the rival company’s monitor document for prosperous rocket launches.

SpaceX was not amid the options presented to board members, the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit argues the board had small job in negotiations. Rather, Mr Bezos and his group led the negotiations with a corporation he also owned, it is claimed.

The company’s audit committee “rubberstamped” the transaction in January 2022 when Mr Bezos was nonetheless chief executive of Amazon, the match alleges. Two months later, the deal was approved by the board.

The entire Amazon board, which include Mr Bezos, are defendants in the case.

The lawsuit adds that, beyond the likely conflict of desire, there was not adequate scrutiny of “Blue Origin’s deficiency of reliability”. The assert states the company’s major carry rocket continues to be “firmly rooted to the ground”. Amazon has but to launch a one satellite. 

Even though Mr Bezos’s rocket firm has released fifty percent a dozen tourist flights to the edge of house, its present-day New Shepard rocket has not flown for around a 12 months. The 1st start of its more substantial New Glenn rocket is not planned right up until upcoming 12 months.

An Amazon spokesman mentioned: “The promises in this lawsuit are fully with no merit, and we glance ahead to exhibiting that via the legal method.”