They say the Justice Department has seized money he made independently of Amazon, and have taken Amy Nelson’s earnings as well.Ĭarl Nelson has filed his own suit against Amazon, alleging that the company has run afoul of Washington state’s new law restricting non-competition agreements. In court papers, Nelson’s attorneys claim provisions of his Amazon employment contract, inked in 2012 when he became the second member of the AWS real estate team, include broad allowances for outside work. Nor has the company canceled two contested land deals, one of which saw Nelson and Kirschner work with two Northstar employees to buy land in northern Virginia and sell it to Amazon - netting them a collective $18 million in the process. In addition, Amazon hasn’t broken the data center leases alleged to have funded the kickbacks. District Court Images)Īttorneys representing Watson and Northstar claim Amazon and IPI sparked the federal investigation to cut Northstar out of millions in future profits. Amazon was alerted to the alleged fraud by an email to Jeff Bezos in December 2019.
(top) is one of the real estate deals in which Amazon alleges two former AWS real estate managers conspired with a real estate developer to receive kickbacks in exchange for the company’s business. An Amazon Web Services data center in Sterling, Va. Watson’s capital partner, IPI Partners, an investment company linked to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, put up more than 90% of the construction costs while Watson covered the rest, expecting to profit as Amazon paid to occupy the leased, built-to-suit data centers. They are vigorously fighting Amazon’s civil action.Īttorneys for Carl Nelson and Watson separately claim Amazon hasn’t shown that any of the data center leases damaged the tech giant, which fronted no money for the projects. Watson and Nelson, the husband of Seattle entrepreneur Amy Nelson, deny any wrongdoing. The Department of Justice, acting in concert with Amazon, has also seized millions in proceeds related to 11 Virginia real estate deals involving Kirschner and Nelson.
Amazon claims the men conspired with others to generate millions of dollars in kickbacks to Nelson and Kirschner in exchange for directing AWS development deals to Watson’s company, Northstar Commercial Partners. In its place are a web of civil lawsuits and a federal criminal investigation. In the ensuing 2-and-a-half years, the groundwork laid during the afternoon meeting at the West 8th building would support a $500 million data center building blitz, before allegations of secret kickbacks, bribery and double-dealing blew it apart. The third, Colorado developer Brian Watson, put himself forward as a person who could salve Amazon’s growing pains. Two of the participants in the August 2017 meeting - Casey Kirschner, an AWS real estate manager, and Carl Nelson, Kirschner’s boss and mentor - were leading that physical expansion for Amazon. The cloud giant was rushing to build data centers around the world to fuel a fast-growing business that three years later would generate more than $45 billion in annual revenue, helping to make its longtime leader, Andy Jassy, the Amazon board’s pick to succeed Jeff Bezos as CEO. Just another trio of ambitious, intense men gathering to make plans that could make money.Īmazon Web Services needed more capacity.
The August 2017 meeting at an Amazon office in downtown Seattle was, by all appearances, a normal bit of business. two former AWS real estate managers and others. Eleven data center deals are now the subject of a suit by Amazon vs. Amazon Web Services had embarked on a data center building boom to handle soaring demand as attendees gathered for its 2019 re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.
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