Tech chiefs to appear before US Congress in July antitrust hearing
The chief executives of Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook will all testify before a US Congress panel later this month, as scrutiny of competition in the tech sector ramps up.
An approximate date of 27 July has now been set for the group to appear, sources told Reuters, with all four chiefs having been made available by their respective companies.
It was previously not known whether Apple chief Tim Cook would testify, with the Cupertino tech firm only willing to publicly commit a senior executive.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing will likely have at least some witnesses and politicians appearing via video link, one of the sources said.
It was not clear if the four men — also including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg — would appear before the full committee or the antitrust subcommittee, they added.
The so-called Big Four are under investigation by a House Judiciary Committee panel, which is expected to issue a report in coming weeks, and the US Justice Department for alleged anti-competitive behaviour.
The US Federal Trade Commission is also probing Facebook and Amazon, and US state attorneys general are looking at Facebook and Google.
Several investigations are ongoing outside the US, with the EU currently scrutinising anti-competitive practices by Amazon and Apple.