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Saturday, September 14, 2025
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  • The Competition Commission of India (CCI) in 2020 ordered an investigation into them for allegedly promoting sellers with which they had business arrangements and giving priority to certain listings.
  • In a 1,027-page report on Amazon and a separate 1,696-page report on Flipkart, both dated Aug 9, the CCI investigators said the two companies were found to have created an ecosystem where preferred sellers appeared higher in search results, elbowing out others.
    • The investigation
    • The investigators raided certain sellers of Amazon and Flipkart during the probe.
    • This followed a Reuters investigation in 2021, which was based on Amazon internal documents, and showed the company gave preferential treatment for years to a small group of sellers on its platform, and used them to bypass laws.
    • The company has denied any wrongdoing but the CCI previously told a court the Reuters special report corroborated evidence it had against Amazon.
    Findings
    • Amazon: preferred sellers on the platform “get the advantage in the (online) listing” and when a customer searches for any product, “his attention is drawn towards” those listings.
    • Flipkart: preferred sellers were provided various services such as marketing and delivery at a “miniscule cost”.
    • They were also enabled by Flipkart to sell phones with deep discounts which amounts to “predatory pricing” and forecloses competition, the CCI said.
    • “The anti-competitive practices are not limited to sales of mobile phones. They are equally prevalent in other categories of goods,” both reports stated.
    Roadblocks
    • For months, Flipkart and Amazon tried to block the investigation through legal challenges in courts, but the Supreme Court in 2021 allowed it to go ahead.
    • Last month, India’s commerce minister publicly called out Amazon by saying the company’s investments were often used to cover its business losses.
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