IndiGlobal Bureau
Top startups in the country discussed contentious issues pertaining to anti- competitive pricing with the parliamentary panel recently. Top executives of big companies including Paytm founder Vijay Shekar Sharma, Ritesh Agarwal, OYO founder, Flipkart CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy attended the meeting. According to sources, the main issue that was put forth was a lack of platform equality to the standing committee on Finance.
It may be noted that the panel met media and hospitality industries earlier to discuss competitive pricing. The committee had also met representatives of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter earlier. In May, this year, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued notices to Ola, along with Uber, for unfair trade practices and violation of consumer rights. Similarly, CCPA also issued a warning to ecommerce portals of strict action for selling certain Ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani drugs without a valid prescription.
According to the people in the know of things, the meeting covered topics on regulating user data and defining the market for emerging internet businesses. In the wake of a growing business environment, especially in the digital space, the Standing Committee on Finance is examining the digital economy and is mulling over the evaluation of changes to competition law.
It has been noticed that some companies in the taxi market and big names including Flipkart and Amazon in the e-0commerce market charged consumers far below the costs thus resulting in ‘predatory pricing’ in a bid to drive out competitors and capture the market but soon raise prices and recoup losses. In most cases, predatory pricing happens behind the veil of technology innovation.
With the foreign capital flow and number of venture capitalists the case gets complex. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is carrying a number of investigations against Google, Facebook-WhatsApp, Apple, Amazon, Flipkart, MakeMyTrip-Goibibo, Swiggy and Zomato.
