[1/2]Amazon’s logo is seen at the company’s logistics center in Lauwin-Planque, northern France, on January 5, 2023. Portal/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo Acquire License Rights
Aug 31 (Portal) – An Amazon (AMZN.O) shareholder has filed a lawsuit against founder Jeff Bezos and the Amazon board, alleging that the directors overruled a decision to award launch contracts for the Project Kuiper satellite project of the company to Blue Origin, Bezos, has not fully vetted the space company.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this week by the Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund, alleges that Amazon’s board awarded billions of dollars worth of contracts to Blue Origin and failed to include Elon Musk-owned rival SpaceX as an alternative launch vehicle provider, despite its track record have considered.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper is a planned network of over 3,000 satellites that will transmit broadband internet to remote regions. This makes it a competitor to Musk’s Starlink.
Asked about the lawsuit, an Amazon spokesman said in an email to Portal: “The allegations in this lawsuit are completely without merit and we look forward to proving this through the legal process.”
The Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund, a cross-employer fund, said in its filing that the introductory agreements represented the second-largest capital expenditure in Amazon’s history at the time. Amazon’s largest acquisition is the $13.7 billion deal to buy Whole Foods in 2017.
Amazon has already paid about $1.7 billion to the project’s three sponsors, including $585 million directly to Blue Origin, the lawsuit says, adding that the company has not yet launched a prototype of its Kuiper satellite brought into orbit.
Project Kuiper will begin mass production of the satellites this year and begin beta testing with commercial customers in 2024, Amazon announced earlier this year.
The 2024 deployment target would keep Amazon on track to meet an FCC regulatory mandate to launch half of its total Kuiper network of 3,236 satellites by 2026.
According to a lawsuit filed Aug. 28 in the Delaware Court of Chancery, the pension fund is seeking unspecified damages and attorneys’ fees.
Reporting by Chandni Shah and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Lavanya Ahire; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Miral Fahmy
Our standards: The Trust Principles.
Acquire license rights, opens new tab