new Delhi: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved Amazon’s proposal to acquire Catamaran Ventures’ entire stake in Prion Business Services, a joint venture (JV) between Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures and US-based e-commerce has given. vast.
Priyan owns Cloudtail, one of the largest and most profitable retailers on Amazon India.
“The Commission approves the acquisition of Prion Business Services Pvt Ltd by Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources Pvt Ltd,” the anti-trust watchdog said in a tweet.
In December last year, Amazon said that they would acquire Prion Business Services, subject to necessary regulatory approvals. On 9 August, the partners announced their decision not to continue the joint venture beyond the end of their current term in May 2022. The joint venture continued under the leadership of the current management once regulatory approval came through the boards of Prien and Cloudtail. The transaction is expected to be completed in compliance with applicable laws.
According to reports, senior executives of Amazon India are expected to meet this week.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which represents around 7 crore merchants in the country, has dropped an investigation against Amazon for “violating certain laws relating to selling private labels on its portal”. CCI has been criticized for
CAIT termed the CCI as a spineless, toothless body, unable to discharge the duties as an anti-trust regulator. The traders’ body alleged that the issues were kept pending for a long time and by that time, the issue had already caused damage to the affected party.
CAIT has sought a thorough study of the functioning of CCI and remedial measures to make it a more efficient and accountable regulator like TRAI and SEBI.
In a joint statement, CAIT national president BC Bhartia and general secretary Praveen Khandelwal said, “We believe that the CCI did not ask the agency to substantiate its allegations referred to in its published article and the order passed by the CCI ex-parte who violated. Norms of the principle of natural justice. We don’t understand why the government and government agencies are completely silent on broad daylight violations of policy, rules and laws by Amazon and others.”
Bhartia and Khandelwal said Indian traders are deeply disturbed and shocked that the Indian retail ecosystem has been repeatedly left vulnerable simply because the CCI has failed to discharge its duties.
He alleged that the CCI had to ensure that the interests of all stakeholders were protected. However, in the last 5-7 years, foreign MNCs have steamrolled their way through the Indian market, violating all laws in spirit and creating an unhealthy business environment and CCI has so far been only a spectator who has been caught by foreigners. Not able to restrain the players.