CJ Rosenbaum and Rob Segall, one of our associate attorneys with the firm, speaking about arbitrations and demanding documents from Amazon.
Demand for Documents:
A demand for documents is very similar to the discovery process in court. Amazon sellers know that often dealing with the regular appeal process at Amazon can be difficult and it’s almost impossible to get any substantive information from Amazon.
During arbitration, the demand for documents is an opportunity for CJ to ask Amazon’s lawyers to present information related to our clients’ case so that we can figure out how to best present our arguments to win the arbitrations against Amazon.
Amazon does not respond when you reach out and ask them for information about your plan of action. They don’t tell you what the problem was or the invoices they think were forged or manipulated. When you go into arbitration, they can no longer make the decision about what information to keep secret from sellers. You are taking the decision out of their hands.
The way the arbitration process begins is by drafting and filing a demand for arbitration. You get assigned an arbitrator and are now in the discovery process where you get to ask Amazon to provide you with documents and information. Amazon also gets to ask us to provide them with documents and information.
What Rob drafted yesterday was a demand for documents and what we want from Amazon. Rob covered a case where our client was baselessly accused of selling inauthentic products. We demanded from Amazon what the complaints were from consumers and what Amazon did in their investigation.
What types of products has Amazon asked us to produce?
Usually, it’s things that our clients have already given to Amazon in the past, such as plans of action that were previously submitted, copies of the invoices if it’s an inauthentic issue, or correspondence with the buyers that complained against them.