Walmart-Owned Flipkart Files Plea Against India Antitrust Probe
The online shopping giants have been accused of deep discounting and pushing their own products to buyers.
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Walmart-owned Flipkart on Friday has legally challenged the antitrust investigation which has been ordered by Competition Commission of India (CCI) back in January this year.
This has been mentioned in a Reuters report quoting sources, which also suggests Flipkart is not pleased with the CCI probe order.
The legal filing says that CCI has ordered an enquiry on the company without having credible evidence to prove the wrongful practices allegedly adopted by them. Flipkart has reportedly said the CCI order was “perverse (and) passed without any application of mind”.
Both Flipkart and Amazon have been repeatedly accused of hurting business returns of Indian retailers, and enticing people to buy goods online with attractive discounts and deals, which the offline guys are not able to match.
The Reuters report says both the companies have denied these allegations.
The legal challenge by Flipkart is expected to be heard next week, and it remains to be seen if the company gets the judgement in its favour.
This legal challenge comes few weeks after Amazon had filed a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court seeking stay on the CCI probe order into its alleged violations of the competition laws which was accepted by the judiciary panel after hearing the case.
In addition to this, the court has asked the respondents in the matter including CCI and Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) to file their responses within eight weeks.
Hearing the news about the stay order, Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) had termed the interim stay as "unfortunate and unexpected". He added that the CAIT is having a discussion with its lawyers over the future legal course.
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