New Jersey Amazon DSP Antitrust Lawsuit

On August 4, 2026, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed an antitrust complaint against Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon.com Services LLC, and Amazon Logistics, Inc. in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The state says Amazon used buyer-side power, known as monopsony power, to hold down pay and conditions for thousands of Delivery Service Partner drivers.

New Jersey DSP Lawsuit

The case is docketed as Case 2:26-cv-09814. According to the Attorney General’s announcement, it is the first time a state has brought a monopsony conduct complaint. Reuters and CNBC both reported the suit the same day, and Amazon denied the core claims and said DSPs run their own operations.

The lawsuit was filed in New Jersey, and Amazon’s DSP vans also run Kentucky roads every day. The control structure described in New Jersey’s papers is the same structure crash lawyers reconstruct when a delivery van hits a passenger car, a cyclist, or a pedestrian, as covered in Amazon DSP driver negligence in Kentucky.

Complaint Allegations

New Jersey alleges Amazon is the dominant purchaser of DSP delivery services and, through that system, the dominant buyer of DSP driver labor in New Jersey and the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area. The complaint says Amazon built the DSP program in 2018 after package volume outgrew its reliance on UPS, FedEx, and USPS, and that Amazon now moves the bulk of its packages through DSPs.

The state’s theory has three main branches:

1. Amazon allegedly monopsonized the DSP services market in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
2. Amazon allegedly restrained trade through DSP agreements and coordinated practices in violation of Section 1.
3. Amazon allegedly enforced a practical no-poach rule that stopped DSPs from recruiting one another’s drivers.

Parallel claims are pleaded under the New Jersey Antitrust Act. The Attorney General’s release describes the worker impact as lower wages, harsher conditions, and limits on labor competition, and quotes Davenport saying Amazon “built a company worth trillions while subjecting drivers in its delivery network to artificially low pay and punishing working conditions.”

Delivery Service Partner Network

Amazon launched the Delivery Service Partner program in 2018 so local companies could deliver the last mile of Amazon packages. Amazon’s DSP program page still markets the model as a path to own a delivery business, citing more than 4,400 DSPs across 20 countries and startup costs that can begin around $10,000 with Amazon-negotiated deals.

New Jersey’s complaint describes DSPs differently. It says DSPs sit between Amazon and the drivers, absorb tort risk and employment costs, and still take Amazon’s routes, vans, software, uniforms, and scorecards. The gap between the independent-business label and day-to-day control is the center of the case, and the same gap appears when an injured person tries to identify every company tied to the van, the route, the warehouse, and the delivery metrics.

Amazon Response

Amazon rejected the filing. Spokesperson Steve Kelly told Reuters the complaint “is not grounded in fact,” said the Attorney General’s office had not raised its main claims with Amazon before suing, and called the working-condition allegations “just wrong.” Kelly said DSPs manage drivers’ workdays and route execution and that DSP employees remain free to choose their employer. CNBC reported Amazon’s position that DSPs make their own hiring, fleet, and capacity decisions. The court will decide which description matches the contracts and daily operations.

Control Allegations in the Complaint

Personal injury cases depend on records more than antitrust labels, and the complaint lists the same controls that come up after an Amazon-branded van crash: who built the route, who owned the metrics, who approved the hire, and who could cut a DSP off overnight.

Routes and Packages

Amazon allegedly assigns packages and designs the routes drivers must run, then ties DSP pay to those Amazon-set route estimates rather than hours worked.

Branded Vans and Uniforms

Most DSPs lease Amazon-branded vans under Amazon lease terms, and the complaint says those vans and Amazon uniforms may be used only for Amazon packages.

Software and Scorecards

Drivers start and end the day in Amazon apps. Performance scores, lockouts, and discipline flow through Amazon systems that a DSP cannot replace without rebuilding its whole operation.

Hiring Approval

Most hiring runs through Amazon’s DSP Job Hub. The state alleges Amazon must approve hires and can block a driver from moving to another DSP.

Cameras and Monitoring

GPS, in-vehicle cameras, and AI monitoring allegedly give Amazon a continuous view of driver activity while the employment paperwork sits with the DSP.

No-Poach and Organizing Allegations

The complaint spends substantial space on labor mobility. New Jersey says Amazon first wrote, then continued in practice, a rule that kept DSPs from recruiting drivers already working for other DSPs. The state calls that a classic no-poach restraint and argues that when DSPs cannot bid drivers away from one another, wages and conditions stop moving through ordinary employer competition.

The filing also alleges Amazon answered organizing drives with surveillance, route cuts, and DSP terminations. It describes a Queens delivery station campaign in late 2024, a December strike, later layoffs, and the August 2025 termination of Cornucopia Logistics despite a top scorecard rating, and it says some workers who supported organizing later could not get hired at other DSPs. No court has found these civil complaint allegations true, and Amazon denies the case’s factual foundation.

Corporate Structure Evidence

When an Amazon-branded van is in a crash, the first police report may list only the driver and a local DSP. The van lease, the warehouse assignment, the route software, the camera vendor, and Amazon Logistics’ operating role can all sit behind the DSP name on the door.

Kentucky injury cases treat multi-layer commercial delivery the way other commercial cases do: by identifying every entity that hired, dispatched, owned, leased, insured, or controlled the work. That map is covered in liable parties in Kentucky truck crashes and freight broker liability. The New Jersey complaint adds a public, primary-source description of how tightly Amazon’s DSP system can bind those layers together.

DSP work is also separate from Amazon Flex. Flex drivers usually use personal vehicles under a gig model, while DSP drivers are employees of a DSP and typically drive branded vans on Amazon-built routes, so insurance, employment status, and corporate defendants can differ. Flex issues are covered in Hit by an Amazon Flex Driver.

Records After a Delivery Crash

Electronic and paper records disappear on short vendor timelines: camera clips are recorded over, app logs age out, and DSPs dissolve after losing their contracts. Early preservation letters and targeted requests lock in the operating record. The records that show control include:

• The DSP contract, whose service agreement and operations manual show who sets rates, routes, and termination rights.
• Route and app data, including assigned stops, timing estimates, scorecard metrics, and any lockout history in Amazon systems.
• Van lease papers, whose lease terms, branding limits, and repair bills can trace the vehicle to Amazon’s fleet program.
• Camera and GPS logs, including in-cab video, AI event flags, and GPS traces that often expire unless someone requests them quickly.

An antitrust complaint decides nothing in a Kentucky crash case, and it still gives injured people and their lawyers a concrete checklist of where control evidence tends to live. Broader delivery crash patterns are covered in Amazon crash lawsuits.

Court Relief Sought

The complaint asks the court to declare Sherman Act and New Jersey Antitrust Act violations, enjoin the challenged practices, order structural and conduct remedies, appoint a monitor paid by Amazon, and award damages, penalties, restitution, interest, and fees. The Attorney General’s release points to treble damages tied to compensation drivers allegedly lost and permanent injunctive relief, and the complaint demands a jury trial on issues triable by jury.

Other Amazon litigation is already pending in New Jersey and elsewhere, including consumer antitrust theories joined by other states and the FTC, a civil rights case about pregnant workers and workers with disabilities, and a Flex misclassification suit brought with the state labor department. Those are separate cases with separate theories.

Kentucky Delivery Crash Litigation

New Jersey’s suit will proceed in federal court in Newark under antitrust standards. Kentucky crash claims still depend on negligence, agency, negligent hiring or retention, corporate control, and insurance layers under Kentucky law. The connection is documentary: when Amazon’s public model says independent, and the internal systems show Amazon routes, Amazon vans, Amazon cameras, and Amazon lockouts, the case file has to capture both accounts before the data is gone.

The filing gives a current, primary-source map of the DSP control structure, paired with Amazon’s denial, that can sharpen early investigation when an Amazon delivery van is involved in a serious injury crash on a Kentucky road.