Multinational e-comm giants flouting FDI norms: CAIT

Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said on Tuesday that a few heavily funded multinational e-commerce giants are attempting to flout foreign investment guidelines for the sector and demanded the enforcement of stricter action.

Releasing a whitepaper on the e-commerce policy, the traders’ association stated that e-commerce entities have "structured their relationship as a marketplace with sellers in such a way that they are in a position to control either seller on their platform or the inventory and also escape the scrutiny of the enforcement agencies."

"Under the guise of such control or ownership over sellers, the issue also permeates from being a mere FDI policy violation to also being an anti-competitive conduct," it said.

It further added that "The mitigating measures and strict action for enforcement of the law in letter and spirit are of paramount importance." Otherwise, the FDI policy on e-commerce will fail in its objective of catering to the interests of domestic manufacturers, traders, sellers, MSMEs, start-ups and creation of a level-playing field in retail.”

CAIT said the government policy allows for 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in single-brand retail trading (SBRT) and B2B cash and carry. In the case of multi-brand retail trading (MBRT) however, FDI of up to 51 per cent is allowed only through the government approval route in order to protect the business of MSMEs and small traders.

Since inventory-based e-commerce is nothing but operating a multi-brand retail store through electronic means, no FDI has been allowed in the case of such a model of e-commerce under the FDI policy. However, to enable the proliferation of technology that can help MSME and kiranas, 100 per cent FDI through the automatic route has been allowed to set up the e-commerce marketplace platform.