The Federal Trade Commission asked a judge in Seattle to delay the start of its trial accusing Amazon of duping consumers into signing up for its Prime program, citing resource constraints.
Attorneys for the FTC made the request during a status hearing on Wednesday before Judge John Chun in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Chun had set a Sept. 22 start date for the trial.
Jonathan Cohen, an attorney for the FTC, asked Chun for a two-month continuance on the case due to staffing and budgetary shortfalls.
The FTC’s request to delay due to staffing constraints comes amid a push by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency to reduce spending. DOGE, which is led by tech baron Elon Musk, has slashed the federal government’s workforce by more than 62,000 workers in February alone.
“We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on our case team,” Cohen said.
Chun asked Cohen how the FTC’s situation “will be different in two months” if the agency is “in crisis now, as far as resources.” Cohen responded by saying that he “cannot guarantee if things won’t be even worse.” He pointed to the possibility that the FTC may have to move to another office “unexpectedly,” which could hamper its ability to prepare for the trial.
“But there’s a lot of reason to believe … we may have been through the brunt of it, at least for a little while,” Cohen said.
John Hueston, an attorney for Amazon, disputed Cohen’s request to push back the trial date.
“There has been no showing on this call that the government does not have the resources to proceed to trial with the trial date as presently set,” Hueston said. “What I heard is that they’ve got the whole trial team still intact. Maybe there’s going to be an office move. And by the way, both in government and private sector, I’ve never heard of an office move being more than a few days disruptive.”
The FTC sued Amazon in June 2023, alleging that the online retailer was deceiving millions of customers into signing up for its Prime program and sabotaging their attempts to cancel it.
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” former FTC Chair Lina Khan said at the time.
The FTC has also brought a separate case against Amazon, accusing it of wielding an illegal monopoly, in part by preventing sellers from offering cheaper prices elsewhere through its anti-discounting measures. That case, which the FTC filed in September 2023, is set to go to trial in October 2026.
