SELF-DEALING: Lawsuit claims Amazon’s board erred in awarding Kuiper launch contracts to Blue Origin and others.

A pension fund has filed suit against the board of directors of Amazon, claiming they “acted in bad faith” in approving launch contracts for the Project Kuiper broadband constellation that awarded billions of dollars to Blue Origin, the company founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

The suit, a public version of which was filed with Delaware’s Court of Chancery Aug. 28, alleges that Amazon’s board and one of its committees spent “barely an hour” reviewing contracts with Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance, whose Vulcan Centaur rocket uses engines from Blue Origin, before approving them in March 2022. Delaware Business Court Insider first reported the lawsuit.

The suit is filed by the Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund, an Amazon shareholder, and sheds new light on how Amazon selected Blue Origin and ULA, along with Arianespace, for contracts announced in April 2022 to launch the 3,236-satellite constellation. It also suggests that personal animus between Bezos and Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, prevented Amazon from considering SpaceX for those contracts.

I’ve wished Blue Origin success, and still do, but at this point it’s not a real launch company. And while Musk sleeps at his factories when things aren’t going well, Bezos is partying on his yacht.