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Amazon settles legal battle against AWS managers accused of data center agreement kickbacks
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Amazon has ended a six-year legal battle with two former AWS managers accused of taking kickbacks for certain data center deals.
Key facts
- Carl Nelson and Casey Kirschner, who were named in the 2020 lawsuit alongside Denver-based real estate firm Northstar Commercial Partners, said in a joint statement that they “regret their actions” and “apologize for failing to meet Amazon’s high ethical standards
- The trust then transferred money to Christian Kirschner and other entities that funneled funds to Nelson and Casey Kirschner
- The case against Northstar will continue, with a trial date of November 2
- But last year, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit revived several claims and sent the case back to trial
Summary
Carl Nelson and Casey Kirschner, who were named in the 2020 lawsuit alongside Denver-based real estate firm Northstar Commercial Partners, said in a joint statement that they “regret their actions” and “apologize for failing to meet Amazon’s high ethical standards.” They said that the payments broke Amazon’s code of conduct and put the company’s reputation at risk. Nelson and Kirschner had been accused of engaging Northstar in nine different build-to-suit leasing projects for Amazon in Virginia worth hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for kickbacks delivered as “referral fees” through a trust owned by Kirschner’s brother, Christian Kirschner. According to court documents, the fees were calculated as a percentage of the fees Northstar received on its Amazon leases.