Piyush Goyal, India’s Railway and Commerce minister, has found the big U.S. firms to be a little arrogant. While Goyal didn’t take any names, he was referring to the companies such as Amazon and Walmart owned Flipkart. India’s Commerce minister further said that these companies had disregarded Indian law not once but on multiple occasions.
According to a Reuters report, Goyal said these large companies have easy access to low-cost capital because of which they can ‘indulge’ in predatory pricing practices. This results in the poor sales and performance of the local small businesses which sell the same products which are listed on Amazon.
These Companies Have Flouted Indian Laws on Several Occasions: Prasad
Prasad said he had multiple interactions with the large U.S. firms, and he noticed a little arrogance from the companies. It is worth noting that Prasad didn’t reveal or say the specific laws that these companies have broken, neither did he name the companies.
However, the timing of his comments seems to be in support of the small Indian businesses which have accused large online retail giants such as Amazon and Flipkart of being disregarding the Indian laws.
Both Amazon and Flipkart have said that the allegations against them by the traders are completely false. Goyal further said these companies have indulged in ‘forum shopping’ in the courts and have not complied with the investigation that was launched by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
As per Goyal, if these companies haven’t done anything wrong and are not hiding anything, they should have complied with the investigation of the CCI. Both Amazon and Flipkart have appealed against CCI’s wish to restart an enquiry of their business practices. It is worth noting that a judge had already dismissed the companies’ original pleas earlier this month.
Further, in a letter to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, the Confederation of All India Traders, have even accused the online retail giants of treating India the same way as that of a ‘Banana Republic’ which has weak laws. The industry body has asked the Indian government to ensure that the proposed e-commerce rules shouldn’t be diluted regardless of what the big companies in the field want.
