Amazon and Infosys founder NR Naryana Murthy-owned Catamaran Ventures have determined to discontinue their joint-venture partnership for Prione Business Services — the father or mother firm of Cloudtail India, certainly one of Amazon India’s greatest sellers.
“Prione Business Services Pvt. Ltd, the joint venture between Amazon and Catamaran, has been running successfully for the past 7 years and comes up for renewal on May 19, 2022. The two partners today announced they have mutually decided to not continue their joint venture beyond the end of its current term,” Amazon and Catamaran mentioned in a joint assertion.
The announcement got here on Monday, hours after the Supreme Court rejected a plea by Amazon and Flipkart in search of a keep on a probe by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into their enterprise practices, paving the way in which for the antitrust regulator to look into varied allegations levelled by merchants and sellers on these platforms. For years, sellers on platforms like Amazon and Flipkart have been complaining the preferential therapy offered to sure giant sellers on these marketplaces, significantly those which have a relationship with the platforms.
Responding to a particular question by The Indian Express on the rationale of the choice, an Amazon India spokesperson mentioned: “Both the partners believe that the primary business objectives of the JV have been fulfilled. Hence, the JV partners have decided to not renew the JV.” Further, when requested in regards to the subsequent plan of action, the spokesperson mentioned: “Catamaran and Amazon have mutually agreed to not renew the JV and partners will decide the next steps.”
In addition to Cloudtail, Amazon additionally has a partnership with the Patni Group, by which it operates one other main vendor on its platform Appario Retail. In February 2019, following the business division issuing the Press Note 2, asking on-line marketplaces with international funding to not have relationship with sellers on their platforms, Amazon had decreased its stake in Prione Business Services to 24 per cent from 49 per cent earlier. Catamaran’s stake in Prione then rose to 76 per cent from 51 per cent. At the identical time, Amazon had additionally decreased its stake within the Appario Retail JV to 24 per cent.
“Amazon and Catamaran entered into a JV in the early days of e-commerce in India with a shared vision of transforming hundreds of thousands of small businesses in a fast-changing digital world, by providing online capabilities enabling them to access customers both in India and globally,” Amit Agarwal, international senior VP and nation head-Amazon India, mentioned.
In June, the Consumer Affairs Ministry had introduced draft amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, considerably tightening the foundations for on-line marketplaces. Shortly after the announcement of the draft amendments, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal had reprimanded e-commerce companies for “forum shopping” to delay sharing data with the CCI. “A number of these large e-commerce companies have come into India and very blatantly flouted the laws of the land in more ways than one…I’ve had several engagements with these large companies, particularly the American ones, and I can see a little bit of arrogance,” he had mentioned.
