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Crackdown on Amazon and Flipkart vendors, ED conducts raids on 16 locations
The ED conducted raids on 15-16 locations belonging to vendors of Amazon and Flipkart in relation with a FEMA probe.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday conducted searches against some sellers who do business on e-commerce giants like Amazon, Flipkart as part of a FEMA investigation, official sources said. The central agency conducted raids on at least 15 to 16 locations belonging to these vendors, sources told Hindustan Times.
Antitrust investigations conducted by the Competition Commission of India have found that Amazon and Flipkart violated local competition laws by giving preference to select sellers, prioritising certain listings, and steeply discounting products, hurting other companies, officials told HT.
Sources told PTI that the action is related to the financial transactions being done by some of the "preferred" vendors and sellers who do business through Amazon and Flipkart like e-commerce platforms.
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Multiple locations in Delhi, Gurugram (Haryana), Hyderabad (Telangana) and Bengaluru (Karnataka) were searched in relation with this probe, which is being conducted under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
Through its probe, the ED is investigating potential misuse of e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart by the sellers who may have engaged in illegal financial practices, most likely indulging in illicit financial activities.
The Enforcement Directorate agency has been investigating both e-commerce giants for years for allegedly bypassing foreign investment laws that strictly regulate multi-brand retail and restrict such companies to operating a marketplace for sellers.
The first government source on Thursday told Reuters it was conducting the latest searches on the observations of the antitrust body in its recently concluded investigation of the two companies.
Those Amazon and Flipkart antitrust investigation reports from August, which are not public but have been seen by Reuters, say the platforms "had end-to-end control over the inventory and the sellers are just name lending enterprises."
