Supreme Court refuses to halt CCI probe towards Flipkart and Amazon
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The probe ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) towards e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart for alleged violation of provisions of the Competition Act, 2002, will go on, because the Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene with a Karnataka High Court order which had refused to remain the investigation.
“We expect big organisations like Amazon and Flipkart to voluntarily go for enquiry and you don’t want even that? You have to submit and enquiry has to be permitted,” Chief Justice N V Ramana, heading a two-judge Bench, remarked because the plea by the 2 firms difficult the July 23 HC order got here up earlier than it.
The Bench, additionally comprising Justice Surya Kant, mentioned it discovered no cause to intervene with the HC order however gave the companies 4 extra weeks to answer to the inquiry.
Acting on data supplied by the Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh, which contains of many MSME merchants who depend on commerce of smartphones and associated equipment, the CCI had in January 2020 requested its Director General to carry an investigation and full it in 60 days.
The Mahasangh acknowledged that there are situations of a number of vertical agreements between Flipkart and Amazon with their most popular sellers resulting in a foreclosures of different non-preferred merchants or sellers from these on-line marketplaces. The merchants’ physique additionally alleged that the majority of those most popular sellers are affiliated with or managed by Flipkart or Amazon, both immediately or not directly.
The firms challenged this earlier than the Karnataka HC the place a single-judge Bench rejected it on June 11, saying “it would be unwise to prejudge the issues raised by the petitioners in these writ petitions at this stage and scuttle the investigation”.
On attraction, a division Bench of the Karnataka HC upheld the single-judge order.
Meanwhile, in keeping with a PTI report, Amazon and Flipkart on Monday mentioned they may lengthen full cooperation to the CCI probe, following the Supreme Court’s refusal to entertain their pleas.
