Amazon.com Inc. has signaled that Chief Executive Jeff Bezos is willing to testify before Congress as lawmakers investigate the business practices of the tech industry’s top players.

The House Judiciary Committee is currently pursuing an antitrust probe into Amazon, Facebook Inc., Apple  Inc. and Google LLC to look for potential anti-competitive conduct. A report last week said lawmakers had pressed the firms to indicate by Sunday whether their CEOs would take part in a hearing.

Amazon communicated the willingness of Bezos (pictured) to provide testimony in a letter that was revealed today by the New York Times.  Amazon is “committed to cooperating with your inquiry and will make the appropriate executive available to testify,” read the letter. “This includes making Jeff Bezos available to testify at a hearing with the other CEOs this summer.”

The letter continued, “In addition, we think it bears emphasizing that other senior executives now run the businesses that are the actual subject of the Committee’s investigation.” It was reportedly sent to lawmakers Sunday by an attorney with law firm Covington & Burling, which is representing Amazon. 

There are reportedly a few sticking points that Amazon is seeking to resolve before Bezos’ congressional appearance. According to the Times, these include the timing of the hearing and its format, as well as “questions about the committee’s request for internal documents.” The House Judiciary previously called on Amazon and the three other tech firms it’s investigating to hand over certain internal documents, including some executive emails. 

One of the areas the investigation is focusing on is the market impact of the companies’ past acquisitions. With specific regard to Amazon, the House Judiciary is looking into a recent report that claimed some employees had misused data about third-party merchants on its e-commerce marketplace in violation of company rules. That report, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal this April, is also said to be one of the focus points of a European Union antitrust probe.

“We strictly prohibit our employees from using non-public, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch,” an Amazon spokesperson said after the April report in the Journal. “While we don’t believe these claims are accurate, we take these allegations very seriously and have launched an internal investigation.”

Besides Jeff Bezos, the House Judiciary is reportedly also looking to get testimonies from his counterparts at Facebook, Apple and Google. The committee is said to be interested in holding the hearings next month.

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE