Supreme Court Refuses To Stop CCI Probe Against Amazon & Flipkart Under Competition Act
"We expect big organizations like Amazon and Flipkart to voluntarily go for enquiry and you don't want even that?", CJI said.
In a setback to e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon,the Supreme Court on Friday refused to halt the preliminary enquiry ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into their alleged anti-competitive practices.A bench comprising Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justices Vineet Saran and Surya Kant refused to interfere with the orders of the Karnataka High Court which refused...
In a setback to e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon,the Supreme Court on Friday refused to halt the preliminary enquiry ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into their alleged anti-competitive practices.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justices Vineet Saran and Surya Kant refused to interfere with the orders of the Karnataka High Court which refused to interfere with the preliminary enquiry ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into their alleged anti-competitive practices.
The bench said that the CCI enquiry must go on. However, the bench accepted the request made on behalf of the companies for extending the time for reply to CCI.
"We see no reason to interfere in order. Seeing that time granted is expiring on 9 August, we extend it by 4 weeks", the bench said.
"We expect big organizations 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", CJI Ramana orally remarked during the hearing.
Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium, representing Amazon, submitted that existence of two facts are necessary for a CCI probe - one, an anti-competitive agreement; two, adverse effect on competition. In this case, the existence of these two facts have not been established, he argued.
He contended that the CCI ordered the enquiry without any application of mind. Dr. Singhvi, appearing for Flipkart, also raised similar arguments.
The CCI was represented by Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, Additional Solicitor General Madhavi Divan,briefed by the team from Samvad Partners led by Partners Arjun Krishnan and Harish Narasappa, Senior Associates Ankur Singh and Suhaas Shenoy and Associate Shourya Bari.
The impugned order was passed by the CCI in January 2020 under Section 26(1) of the Competition Act directing the Director General to investigate into the allegations against Amazon and Flipkart. The order came on a complaint filed by Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh (an organization of retailers) who alleged that Amazon and Flipkart were giving preferential treatment to a select set of vendors by having indirect control on their operations, especially the launch of smartphones. The DVM alleged that the e-commerce companies were abusing their competitive position.
(Cases : Flipkart Internet Private Ltd vs Competition Commission of India- SLP(c) No.11558/2021, Amazon Seller Services Private Ltd vs Competition Commission of India-SLP(c) No.11615/2021).
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