Amazon Defeats Investor Lawsuit Seeking Antitrust-Related Files

Amazon.com Inc. sidestepped preliminary litigation by a shareholder demanding corporate documents that may have shed light on the e-commerce giant’s antitrust woes.

A Delaware judge rejected the “astoundingly broad” lawsuit Thursday, criticizing an investment trust for the “boundlessness” of its request, its “scattershot allegations of wrongdoing,” and its “haphazard” efforts to back up its suspicions by cross-referencing other legal proceedings.

A statute giving investors broad access to company records “does not permit stockholders to act as inquisitors, searching a corporation’s documents for any hint of transgression,” Vice Chancellor Lori W. Will said in a 16-page ruling. “These disjointed allegations leave ...