India’s Supreme Court allowed an antitrust investigation to proceed against Amazon unit , Walmart unit and Flipkart for allegedly abusing their dominance by offering huge discounts and preferential treatment to some vendors.
Full bench headed by Justice N.V. Ramana rejected separate petitions by Amazon and Flipkart seeking to halt the probe. The firms have four weeks to respond to notices from the Competition Commission of India.
We expect organisations like Amazon and Flipkart, big organisations, they have to volunteer for inquiry and transparency. We expect that and you don’t even want an inquiry," Justice Ramana told the court.
Amazon and Flipkart deny any wrongdoing and said that the court that the panel didn’t follow required procedure to start the investigation.
E-commerce in India is expected to reach a total market size of $188 billion by 2025 from about $64 billion now, according to Grant Thornton.
The ruling is another regulatory setback for the e-commerce companies in the largest consumer market that’s open to foreign firms.
The South Asian nation is tightening regulations for online retailers following years of protests by local brick-and-mortar traders who fear that deep-pocketed global competition could push them out of business.