Amazon sues financial crime agency in latest twist of Indian battle

NEW DELHI: Amazon.com Inc is taking India’s monetary crime combating company to court docket, looking for to quash an investigation into one in every of its 2019 offers, a court docket submitting seen by Reuters exhibits.
India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) has for months been probing Amazon’s $200 million funding in India’s Future Group for suspected violations of overseas funding legal guidelines.
The funding is on the heart of protracted authorized battles, as Amazon has used the phrases of that deal — and cited contract breaches by Future — to stall the $3.4 billion sale of the Indian firm’s retail property to a rival.
In an 816-page submitting, seen by Reuters, Amazon calls the investigation a “fishing and roving” inquiry, saying the ED had sought privileged authorized recommendation and opinions from Amazon and different info not linked to the Future Group deal.
A number of Amazon executives, together with its India head, had been summoned by the ED in latest weeks and the investigation had triggered “pointless harassment,” the US e-commerce large stated in its submitting to the Delhi Excessive Courtroom on Dec. 21.
“The instructions by the ED asking for disclosure of legally privileged paperwork and litigation privilege info is derogatory of the rules” specified by Indian structure, Amazon stated within the submitting, which isn’t public.
“The investigation is a fishing and roving train.”
Amazon and the ED, which doesn’t make particulars of its investigations public, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. The case will doubtless be heard on Thursday.
The submitting is the most recent twist within the long-running dispute between Amazon and Future. Although India’s antitrust physique suspended their 2019 deal final week, saying Amazon had suppressed info when looking for approvals for it, the ED’s probe is unbiased of that.
The dispute centres round three industrial agreements signed between Future and Amazon entities, which a Singapore arbitration panel — additionally listening to the dispute — has stated should be learn collectively when reviewing the transaction.
Future contends conflating the industrial agreements would successfully imply the deal violated Indian regulation.
Amazon’s court docket submitting contained a discover from the ED dated Feb. 19 which sought particulars of its funding in Future, together with copies of agreements, checking account particulars and different associated inside communication.
It additionally confirmed the ED is conducting a far wider probe, and had sought particulars of massive distributors on Amazon’s e-commerce web site in India, together with gross sales numbers for those who account for greater than 5% of whole gross sales on Amazon.in.
The discover got here after a February Reuters investigation which discovered Amazon helped a small variety of sellers prosper on its Indian platform, giving them discounted charges and utilizing them to bypass overseas funding legal guidelines.
Amazon stated on the time it was assured it complied with rules and that it “doesn’t give preferential remedy to any vendor on its market.”