By Aditya Kalra
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s antitrust body has recalled its investigation report into competition law breaches by e-commerce giant Walmart’s Flipkart, a document shows, the second such move after a report on Apple was revoked in August.
China’s Xiaomi had complained to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) that the report – which found Flipkart, some of its sellers, and smartphone players in violation of competition laws – contained commercial secrets that should have been redacted, Reuters reported in September.
According to two sources and an internal CCI document dated Oct. 1 seen by Reuters on Tuesday, the watchdog has told recipients of the Flipkart report to destroy it and give an undertaking to that effect to avoid further distribution.
Xiaomi argued the report contained its model-wise sales, which are sensitive information.
The CCI document noted some data and information was “inadvertently” included in the report and provided the parties involved with a new report, though it did not spell out what changes it was making.
Xiaomi declined to comment, while the CCI and Flipkart did not respond to Reuters’ queries.
In August, the CCI recalled an antitrust report on Apple after the company complained commercial secrets were disclosed to some of the parties involved.
In a lengthy investigation that started in 2020, the CCI found Flipkart, as well as e-commerce rival Amazon, gave preference to select sellers and prioritised certain listings, and also colluded with companies like Xiaomi, Samsung and Vivo to launch phones exclusively on their websites.
Much of the investigation process, however, remains on hold after Vivo and some online sellers of the two e-commerce companies challenged their inclusion in the probe and obtained court injunctions.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Mark Potter)
