CAIT seeks commerce minister Suresh Prabhu's intervention in Flipkart-Walmart deal

New Delhi: Traders’ body CAIT on Monday said it seeks Commerce & Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu’s intervention in the proposed $12-billion Flipkart-Walmart deal, saying the alliance will encourage malpractices and predatory pricing in e-commerce. In a letter to Prabhu, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said the sale of Flipkart’s Singapore holding company should not be allowed till the time the government frames an e-commerce policy. [caption id=“attachment_4237505” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] The traders’ body argued that the government should make it mandatory that such deals can take place only when 75 percent of the sellers on an e-platform give their assent since they would be the worst sufferers. “In order to ensure free and fair e-commerce business in the country, we suggest that a policy for e-commerce should be finalised at an early date in consultation with all stakeholders including the trading community,” CAIT said. Moreover, it claimed that such a deal will encourage malpractices, loss funding and predatory pricing in e-commerce in the absence of any monitoring mechanism and create an uneven level playing field where offline and online traders will be unable to compete.