E-tailers, Amazon and Flipkart take a sigh of relief on Friday after Karnataka High Court ordered an interim stay on the CCI’s January 13 directive of investigating into the alleged business malpractices of the e-commerce companies.
The High Court has ordered the interim stay for two months after which the counsels for Competition Commision of India, Confederation of All India Traders and Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh and the e-tailers have been asked to respond.
CAIT’s counsel earlier told Justice P S Dinesh Kumar that the CCI’s investigations into the alleged anti-competitive activities of the e-tailers were purely internal in nature. The traders body also accused both the key e-commerce companies, Amazon, Flipkart of entering into a prima-facie in-principle agreement.
“We have been maintaining in the court that the CCI order that called for an invstiagtion into our the businesses of the e-tailers wasn’t correct since none of the e-commerce companies were asked to clarify their positions."
"Furthermore, the trader organisations have been filing courts under various member organisation names all over the country against us, which is pure harassment. We certainly welcome the honourable court’s decision,” a member of Amazon’s briefing counsel team told the New Indian Express.
"Amazon had earlier filed a writ petition in the Karanataka HC seeking an interim stay on the CCI order. While calling the CCI order of January 13, 2020 ‘ perverse, arbitrary, untenable in law,"
"Amazon said that the order has the potential to cause ‘irreversible loss and injury to the goodwill/ reputation of the company.” CCI argued that its order only intended to examine the alleged business malpractices of the e-commerce firms and not their flouting of FDI norms.