The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on March 3 dismissed two antitrust complaints filed against e-commerce platform Shopee, stating that the platform is a new entrant and does not possess significant market power. The complaints against Shopee were filed by Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary-General, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), and a consumer named Vaibhav Mishra. Shopee is an e-commerce company owned by Singapore-based Sea Limited. In February, CAIT had called for a ban of the Shopee app because of Sea's alleged ties with China. CCI on March 3 also dismissed an antitrust complaint filed against Amazon by the All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA). MediaNama has reached out to Praveen Khandelwal for comments and will update this post once we get a response. Why did CCI dismiss the complaints? To initiate an antitrust investigation into a company, CCI needs to be prima facie convinced that a company has dominance in the relevant market and that it has abused this dominance by carrying out anti-competitive practices. In the case of Shopee, CCI was not convinced of either. 1. Shopee does not possess significant market power: Khandelwal and Mishra submitted that Shopee is in a dominant position because it handles over one lakh orders per day, but CCI noted that: "Shopee has had a very recent launch in the market of online platforms in India, which already has the presence of the e-commerce companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Nykaa etc., which have been operating for some time now. The Commission further notes that, though the allegation is…
