Amazon to pay $2.5 bln to settle Prime claims

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By Sara Merken

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REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

Amazon will pay $2.5 billion in fines and reimbursements to Prime subscribers to settle the FTC's allegations that it deceived its customers to generate subscriptions, the agency said.

While a win for consumers and the FTC, the settlement is relatively painless for Amazon: the company takes in around $2.5 billion in sales every 33 hours. Shares of Amazon were nearly unchanged after the news.

Around 35 million Prime customers will be eligible for payout from a $1.5 billion fund, the FTC said. Amazon will pay $1 billion in fines to the FTC. The company did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Amazon said in a statement that the deal allows it to move forward and focus on customers.

The settlement is the second-largest restitution amount ever for an FTC action, agency officials said, and represents a major win for the FTC's tough-on-tech agenda, which began during the first Trump administration. The FTC announced the settlement days into a trial in Seattle federal court, where the agency argued to a jury that Amazon sought to enroll members whether or not they wanted the service.

Read more from Jody Godoy and Greg Bensinger.

REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo

A group of 18 former U.S. Federal Reserve officials, Treasury secretaries and other top economic officials who served under presidents from both parties urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject President Trump's petition to allow his unprecedented attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook to stand.

The group included the past three Fed chairs – Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan – as well as former Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson, Lawrence Summers, Jacob Lew, Timothy Geithner and Robert Rubin. In a brief to the Supreme Court, they argued that letting the president remove Cook while her legal challenge to Trump's action is ongoing would threaten the U.S. central bank's independence and erode public confidence in it.

Both a district court judge and the D.C. Circuit – by a 2-1 vote – have rejected Trump so far. Trump's administration asked the top U.S. judicial body last week to let him move ahead with firing Cook. 

Read more from Dan Burns.

President Trump suggested the U.S. could lift sanctions on Turkey and allow it to buy U.S. F-35 jets as he kicked off talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan … Denmark's 'Novo Town' holds its breath as Wegovy fever fades … China led several countries in announcing new climate plans and offered a veiled rebuke of the U.S. president's anti-climate rhetoric a day earlier at the U.N. General Assembly … Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promoted his government's world-first teen social media ban at an event in New York, warning the challenges posed by social media for children are "constantly evolving".

sara.merken@thomsonreuters.com

@saramerken

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