BENGALURU / NEU-DELHI: The government is examining the possibility of an investigation against Amazon after some of its legal representatives were accused of bribery. Given claims of high legal costs by Amazon’s Indian armies in recent years, government sources said the center may not wait for the global e-commerce giant to complete its internal investigations and could order its own investigation. At the same time, they added, there was one last call to be made.
The investigation, if ordered, will investigate the allegations at both the central government and the state level, the TOI sources said.
Amazon disproved reports that it had spent Rs.8,500 billion on legal fees in recent years. “Given a misleading representation of an item from our legal filings on legal fees in a section of the media, we are clarifying that the item is actually being labeled as legal and professional expenses and includes not only legal fees but costs related to other professional services such as outsourcing, accountants, customer research, logistic support services, onboarding services for dealers, customer service costs, etc. For example, the legal fee for the year ending March 2020 was 52 billion rupees. ”
The domestic dealer lobby group CAIT has already reached out to the government. Reports first surfaced on Monday that Amazon was launching an investigation and sending its manager on vacation.
Amazon is already facing an investigation by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into fees promoted by selected sellers. The e-tailer’s offer to stop the investigation was recently rejected by the Supreme Court.
The company’s operations were overseen by the government, with the center also tweaking the rules that had forced it to overhaul its business model. The latest developments have put Amazon under a new lens.