Most Amazon claims against former real estate managers tossed

Amazon’s attempt to go after two former Amazon Web Services real estate managers isn’t gaining much traction through the legal system.

A federal judge dismissed all but one of the eight claims the company made against two of its former real estate managers, GeekWire reported. Amazon has accused the pair, Carl Nelson and Casey Kirschner, of defrauding the company out of millions through data center development deals.

Amazon alleges it suffered damages through inflated prices paid on real estate leases and purchases. The summary judgment, however, indicated that the company did not succeed in showing evidence of financial damage.

The three-year case boils down to the legality of payments made to Nelson and Kirschner. On one side, Amazon says real estate development firms paid the pair as part of “a massive fraud and kickback scheme.” On the other side, Nelson and Kirschner said payments were permissible business activities.

In court filings, Nelson said the arrangements with real estate firms were part of normal consulting relationships. Nelson added they were made after the termination of his employment at Amazon, for which no reason was given.

The only claim being allowed to proceed is one of civil conspiracy against Nelson, Kirschner, developer Brian Watson and others. There’s also a tortious interference claim continuing on against Watson.

Amazon learned of the alleged scheme when an anonymous email was sent to Jeff Bezos. The company said in a statement that it would proceed with the case, “confident in pursuing the case given the extensive amount of evidence.”

No criminal charges have been filed against the former AWS real estate managers. Two people pleaded guilty to related criminal charges, though, including Kirschner’s brother.

The latest ruling also revealed Amazon deceived Kirschner into giving his work laptop to its IT department by sending him a malware alert. Kirschner was unaware that Amazon was investigating the alleged kickback scheme.

— Holden Walter-Warner