Federal Trade Commission boss Edith Ramirez has had better weeks in her three-plus years atop the regulator.
First, the FTC effort to stop the $6.3 billion Staples-Office Depot combo stumbled badly as a trial over the deal opened — as government lawyers appeared ill-prepared for battle.
Then, the federal court judge overseeing the case accused Ramirez’s agency of telling Amazon to lie about how much competition a combined Staples-Office Depot would face.
The FTC asked Amazon to say it wouldn’t be ready to compete with the combined company until 2017 — when in fact Jeff Bezos’ giant e-commerce company is already in the office supply business.
The FTC, in voting 4-0 to block the merger, maintains there is little competition and no clear No.2 rival.
Amazon said in an affidavit that “the FTC has asked us to insert” a sentence stating it would not be able to make next-day deliveries to large business customers for two years, according to testimony unsealed on Thursday, reported Fortune magazine, which was the first to report on the testimony.
Amazon balked at the FTC request — and said so in closed-door hearing testimony on Wednesday.
The testimony was so startling that Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered it unsealed.
“The public ought to know that the government wanted Amazon to say some things that weren’t true,” Sullivan said, according to the court transcript unsealed Thursday.
Amazon is a possible buyer of some of Office Depot’s corporate accounts, The Post reported exclusively on March 16.
Such a deal could persuade the FTC to okay the mega-merger.
But as Staples dug in its heels and the March 21 start of the trial approached, the FTC sought to downplay any possible competition.
That could improve the FTC’s odds of winning the trial.
While the disclosure that the FTC asked Amazon to lie doesn’t sink its chances, it certainly doesn’t help.
The FTC often has the upper hand in these antitrust court cases.
“The judge is focused more on Amazon than the FTC would like him to be,” said a source closely following the case but not aligned with either side.
“He’s putting a lot of weight on Amazon.”
An FTC lawyer told Sullivan that it “never asked” Amazon to lie, Bloomberg reported.