Controversies around Singapore-headquartered Shopee which entered India late last year refuses to die down. In a fresh development, the Uttar Pradesh police has filed a first information report (FIR) against four of its executives including the India head and the company under Section 419 and 420 for selling counterfeit products.
The FIR has been issued against Ankit Upadhyay who is heading the India business, Sriram Grivasan, grievance officer, and two directors -- Ashok Gupta and Jayant Goyal besides SPPIN India Pvt Ltd, the registered entity of Shopee in India.
Moneycontrol has seen a copy of the FIR which was issued on January 15.
The FIR has been issued following a complaint by Shashank Shekhar Singh who has alleged that products that he bought on December 10, 2021, turned out to be duplicate. Singh has mentioned about three products costing Rs 399, Rs 840 and Rs 1,299, respectively in the FIR. He has alleged that not a single of these items were original products.
In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Singh said that he bought two sunglasses and a bottle of perfume. While one of the sunglasses were advertised under the luxury brand name GUCCI, the other one was of Prada.
"The sale of counterfeit items, and other products that infringe IP, is strictly prohibited on our platform. We require our sellers to be compliant with both local regulations and our own policies. We also employ various proactive screening measures to identify listing violations, and we provide procedures for IP holders to request takedowns of infringing listings," Shopee told Moneycontrol in response to a detailed query.
In the FIR, Singh has also been quoted as saying that after buying the products he got to understand that Shopee was a "Chinese company" which was selling Chinese products in the garb of Indian products to "innocent consumers" in India.
It must be mentioned that on multiple occasions, Shopee has stated that it is a Singapore-headquartered company. However, the company, which counts China’s Tencent as one of its biggest investors, has been on the hit list of domestic traders in India.
In the past, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has claimed that Shopee’s entry in India will send shock waves to the offline traders’ community which is yet to recover from the “unfair trade practices adopted by foreign-funded e-commerce companies”.
CAIT has been flagging Sea’s Chinese affiliations, a prickly topic after the clashes between India and China at Galwan Valley.
"Shopee is a Singaporean company committed to helping Indian small businesses thrive through our online e-commerce marketplace. We aim to partner in India’s digital economy mission while contributing to the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. We serve local Indian sellers exclusively, and we are humbled that thousands of local sellers are already growing their online business on Shopee," the company further said without specifically commenting on the FIR issued.
On November 15, the Delhi High Court also issued a notice seeking the Centre’s response on a public interest litigation that sought to block websites and apps operated by SPINN India, which is Shopee.
Last year Moneycontrol was the first to report that Shopee had launched its operations in India and was clocking 1,00,000 orders on a daily basis.
It shows signs of emerging as a strong challenger that could potentially chip away at incumbents such as US-headquartered Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart and SoftBank-backed Meesho, apart from conglomerates such as Tata and Reliance, which also have huge ambitions for the consumer internet space in India.
To begin with, it seems to be focusing heavily on non-branded products starting as low as Rs 9. It also offers zero commission for sellers and free shipping for customers.
Disclaimer: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.
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