Three online vendors on Flipkart, the e-commerce platform owned by Walmart, have filed a lawsuit against India’s antitrust authority following an investigation that revealed potential violations of competition laws involving them, Flipkart, and competitor Amazon, according to court documents reviewed by Reuters.
The lawsuit was initiated after an investigation by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in August found that Amazon and Flipkart, along with certain vendors and smartphone manufacturers, were giving preferential treatment to select online merchants and favoring certain product listings, as reported by Reuters.
As one of the leading players in India’s e-commerce market, Flipkart competes directly with Amazon.
In a bid to halt the ongoing investigation, the three sellers submitted motions in the High Court of Karnataka, requesting that the court “set aside” the investigation report and suspend the CCI’s proceedings.
Legal actions from these sellers have the potential to prolong the investigation, which initially began in 2020 following complaints from physical retailers represented by the Confederation of All India Traders. Both Amazon and Flipkart have denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
The three Flipkart vendors involved—CIGFIL Retail, Wishery Online, and Xonique Ventures—contend in their lawsuits that they were required to provide information during the investigation but were subsequently named as defendants, which they claim violates due process, as detailed in the court documents.
The sellers described the investigation as “arbitrary, opaque, unfair” in their separate filings, which are scheduled for a hearing next week.
Neither Flipkart nor the CCI provided an immediate comment on the situation. Efforts to contact the three sellers were unsuccessful, and this is the first report on their legal filings.
In a related development, a former seller on Amazon recently filed a lawsuit against the CCI and secured an interim order to prevent the investigation from progressing. This seller argued in court documents—viewed by Reuters—that they were not given prior notice before being implicated in the case.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
