Traders' body welcomes raids on offices of Amazon's Cloudtail and Appario

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has complimented the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for conducting raids on the offices of Cloudtail and Appario, the traders' body said in a statement on April 28.

India's antitrust body today searched premises of top Amazon sellers over alleged violation of competition laws, Reuters reported citing sources with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"It is a much-awaited welcome step of CCI which will surely vindicate the substance of various complaints made by the CAIT against Amazon and Flipkart," said Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT Secretary-General.

"For the past three years, the CAIT has been raising strong objections against mal-practices of Amazon & Flipkart and filed complaints with CCI besides strongly fighting delaying tactics of Amazon & Flipkart in various courts as well," he said.

Khandelwal demanded that the role of Narayan Murthy should also be investigated.

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CAIT further asked for an investigation of the top 20 sellers on Amazon. "The seizure of records will amply substantiate the charges made by CAIT against Amazon and Appario," it said.

The trade leaders alleged that predatory pricing and deep discounting are hurting small retail businesses in India.

Last year Amazon said Cloudtail would cease to be a seller from May.

An extensive investigation in 2021 by Reuters - based on Amazon documents - showed the retail behemoth had given preferential treatment for years to a few sellers, including Cloudtail, and used them to bypass Indian laws.

Amazon earlier rubbished the claims, saying it "does not give preferential treatment to any seller…, and treats all in 'a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner."