CCI Chairman Ashok Kumar Gupta: Digital markets recently have turn out to be ‘centres for unchecked dominance’

Digital marketplaces have turn out to be “centres for entrenched and unchecked dominance,” the chairperson of the competitors regulator mentioned on Thursday, noting that unfair “platform-to-business rules” and unequal bargaining energy between digital platforms and companies might end in exploitation.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is presently investigating allegations of anti-competitive conduct by on-line platforms together with Amazon, Flipkart and MakeMyTrip. Google is presently dealing with three separate CCI investigations into its conduct within the Smart TV, cellular working system and on-line fee platforms areas.
“While there is no doubt that digital markets are the epicentres of technological progress in innovation, lately they have become centres for entrenched and unchecked dominance,” mentioned CCI Chairman Ashok Kumar Gupta at a digital occasion organised by the Center for the Digital Future (CDF).
Gupta famous that digital markets in India had been rife with single gamers or duopolies commanding a big market share.
“The relationship of multiple actors in the ecosystem with these (online) platforms has been increasingly raising competition concerns. Situations can arise where dominant firms in the market are in a position to extract large rents, or even oust their trading partners,” he mentioned, including that competitors needed to be more and more aware of unequal bargaining energy between enterprise and platforms.

The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) lately filed info with the CCI claiming that on-line meals supply platforms Swiggy and Zomato are charging exorbitant commissions to eating places and are utilizing buyer information to advertise their very own cloud kitchens.
Gupta additionally mentioned {that a} current e-commerce market research by CCI concluded that in circumstances the place on-line platforms function each {the marketplace} and a competitor, they’ve an “incentive to leverage the control or the platform in favour of their preferred vendors of private label products to the disadvantage of other sellers or service providers with the platform.”
The CCI had earlier this yr ordered a probe into Flipkart and Amazon over allegations of preferential remedy to sure sellers on their platforms by most popular listings and thru the platforms agreeing to bear the price of reductions from sure sellers throughout key gross sales durations.