In January 2020, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered an inquiry into Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart, following a complaint by a merchant group, but a court held it down in February last year after companies argued that they would Were not providing any evidence.
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Amazon.com Inc told an Indian court on Thursday that a Reuters special report into the business dealings of AAP-commerce giants should not be considered as evidence, as India’s anti-trust watchdog on an anti-trust investigation The injunction was sought to be lifted.
The Reuters report showed that the US firm preferred a small group of sellers on its platform, bypassing foreign investment rules to protect India’s small retailers from being crushed by the e-commerce giants.
In January 2020, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered an inquiry into Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart, following a complaint by a merchant group, but a court held it down in February last year after companies argued that they would Were not providing any evidence. .
Last month, at a hearing seeking lifting of the injunction in an investigation, CCI counsel read parts of the Reuters special report to a judge in the Karnataka High Court, stating that the original complaint was received by the watchman , It was said in that.
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The CCI also presented a media clipping, including the Reuters story, which was presented in court.
On Thursday, Amazon’s lawyer Gopal Subramaniam told the court that Amazon did not agree with Reuters’ story and could not use it as evidence, since the article was published months after CCI ordered its investigation.
The High Court in Karnataka stated that the CCI “read a Reuters article like the Gospel from top to bottom to examine this merit. Newspaper articles are considered not just secondary harsays, but also primary harsays.”
“No court will take judicial notice of such reports,” he said.
CCI’s counsel in the case, Additional Solicitor General of India Madhavi Goradia Diwan, declined to comment on Subramaniam’s comments.
The Reuters report, which was published in February and based on internal company documents between 2012 and 2019, revealed that Amazon had helped enrich a small number of sellers on its platform for years, offering them a discounted fee. An exclusive deals with Dia and Big helped tech producers.
In a Reuters special report, Amazon said it believed it was in compliance with Indian law, adding that it “does not give preferential treatment to any seller on its market,” and that all sellers are “fair, transparent And behaves in non “-different ways. “
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