The judge assigned to the US antitrust case against Amazon resigns

(Reuters) – A judge assigned to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com has recused himself from the case, according to a court document filed on Wednesday.

Senior Judge John Coughenour was assigned to the case Tuesday, when an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon was filed in federal court in Seattle. Coughenour, an appointee of former Republican Party President Ronald Reagan, gave no reason for withdrawing the case to court.

The document shows the case was reassigned to U.S. District Judge John Chun on a rotating basis.

Chun was nominated by President Joe Biden last year. He previously served as a judge on the Washington State Court of Appeals.

In its lawsuit, the FTC accused Amazon of abusing its power in the retail market as an e-commerce giant by unfairly favoring its own products and penalizing sellers who want to sell products at lower prices on other platforms.

Amazon faces a number of similar but smaller consumer cases filed in recent years and pending in the same U.S. federal court as Judge Ricardo Martinez, and the FTC argued that its case should be assigned to the same judge to avoid duplication or conflict .

(Reporting by Abhirup Roy and Mike Scarcella; Editing by Leslie Adler)