Trader’s body CAIT, the Confederation of All India Traders, has urged Indian agencies to take cognizance of e-commerce giant Amazon’s alleged attempt to ‘influence, obstruct, or impede’ a probe into competition in the digital market. Citing American media reports of a letter by a group of members of the US House Judiciary Committee demanding the Department of Justice’s probe against the company for its potential criminal conduct, CAIT claimed that its stand against e-commerce has been vindicated.
In a 24 page letter to the US Attorney General Merrick Garland, the group of US lawmakers have detailed how Amazon allegedly engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct that was designed to influence the committee’s 16-month investigation into competition in the digital market.
CAIT’s national president, BC Bhartia and secretary-general, Praveen Khandelwal said that they have taken note of the summary posted by the subcommittee chair David N Cicilline where he alleged that a senior Amazon official, in their testimony before the committee, represented that the company doesn’t use data it collects on its third-party sellers to compete with them. The company official had also stated that Amazon doesn’t list its own product before the third-party product in customer search results.
However, investigations showed that the claims by Amazon officials may not have been true. Cicilline said that Amazon tried to clean up the inaccurate testimony by an ever-shifting explanation of its internal policies and denials of the investigation reports as based on key understandings and speculations that led to inaccurate conclusions. The subcommittee chair added, ” the committee uncovered evidence from former Amazon employees and former and current seller, the corroborated the reports.”
The committee reportedly gave many chances for Amazon to provide valid documental proof of their claims but the company failed to do.
Welcoming the US lawmakers’ indictment, CAIT said that it agreed with their reference that Amazon and its senior official should be held accountable for their behaviour.
The trader’s body added that the Indian agencies and regulators should take continue the revelation about Amazon’s alleged criminal conduct and launch a time-bound probe in the company’s business model that has allegedly been violating several laws.
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