CCI chats with third-party sellers for ecomm probe | Economic Times

India’s antitrust regulator has reached out to independent sellers as part of its probe against ecommerce firms Amazon India and Flipkart, sources aware of the matter said.This is part of the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) ongoing investigation against the e-tailers over issues like deep discounting and preferential treatment of select sellers. In its conversation with some merchants last week, CCI sought details of how certain sellers were allegedly given preferential treatment, as mentioned in the original complaints by trade bodies such as Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and the Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh (DVM).The move follows a Supreme Court order that cleared the way for CCI to restart its probe against the e-tailers, which had tried to stall the probe in Karnataka High Court (HC) as well as the apex court by challenging the HC order.According to sources aware of the matter, some of the sellers told CCI that launches of certain smartphones were not accessible by independent third-party sellers and shared such contracts between ecommerce platforms and other sellers.Soon after the top court’s directive, the regulator sent questionnaires to both companies seeking their responses on various issues, sources said.“CCI’s director general (DG) essentially wanted to understand more from third-party sellers about the pain points sellers have been raising for a while now. This was part of the ongoing probe,” a person who was aware of the discussions said. “There was a discussion around how some of the top smartphones are launched and smaller sellers can’t participate in them because of marketplaces choosing large and preferred sellers for these launches.”The CCI’s secretary and the DG’s office did not respond to emails till press time Monday.The ecommerce sector is in the middle of a policy flux, with government think tank Niti Aayog opposing many wide-ranging changes proposed by the Department of Consumer Affairs for online commerce in India.Ecommerce firms and industry organisations have raised concerns over clauses that seek to include related parties and logistics service providers as ecommerce entities, the ban on flash sales and mandating the listing of local alternatives while selling imported goods or services.Another person involved in the conversations said it was not immediately clear how long the CCI would take to complete its probe on the ecommerce platforms.Hours after the Supreme Court paved the way for CCI to continue with its probe On August 9, Amazon said that it would end its joint venture with NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures next May, which houses Cloudtail, one of the largest sellers on the Amazon India marketplace.Amazon’s Cloudtail announcement made no mention of the apex court ruling.The complaints to CCI names Cloudtail as well as Appario Retail - another large seller on the marketplace where Amazon has a stake - saying the US-based etailer was preferring these sellers to others.Based on the complaints by CAIT and DVM, the CCI investigation was first ordered just days before Amazon founder Jeff Bezos landed in India on a business trip in 2020.Both Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon India moved the Karnataka High Court, which granted an interim stay into the probe in February 2020Later, CCI moved the Supreme Court, which sent the matter back to HC.A division bench of the HC eventually dismissed the appeals by Flipkart and Amazon India to stall the CCI probe in July.