INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The article stirred up weeks of controversy in India, sparking calls from traders to ban Amazon.United States officials rushed to defend
Amazon's business practices in India after Reuters reported in February that the company had favored certain sellers on its website and
bypassed local law that requires foreign e-commerce companies to treat all vendors equally, documents obtained by the news agency show
Emails obtained through the United States Freedom of Information Act from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)
showed that United States officials prepared a note for John Kerry, a top envoy of President Joe Biden, about the Feb
17 Reuters report.The note, contained in an email dated Feb
18, said that India's antitrust watchdog had reviewed many such allegations against United States e-commerce companies and found nothing
Biden's envoy, former United States Secretary of State Kerry, is in charge of climate change policy
He was scheduled to speak that day with India's Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal
The United States government was concerned that Goyal would bring up the Reuters story, so it hastily drafted a note about the article in
case he did, the emails show."This could come up in the call since as you know Minister Goyal is prone to bring up tangential topics,"
Thomas Carnegie, a United States embassy official in New Delhi, emailed an official at the USTR
Ingeneri, another United States embassy official, also told the USTR official in an email on Feb
18 that he had "verified" the contents of the note prepared for Kerry with Amazon India's government affairs chief as "true and accurate."
The emails do not describe what ultimately happened during the Kerry-Goyal call.The United States embassy in New Delhi referred questions
to the United States Department of State in Washington, which said it expected that any issues regarding United States e-commerce
companies' practices in India would be reviewed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) "with the same level of independence,
transparency, and professionalism it has demonstrated in the past." Spokespeople for Kerry, the USTR and Goyal did not respond to Reuters
preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its India platform, circumventing the country's tough foreign investment rules that
are aimed at protecting small Indian brick-and-mortar retailers.The article stirred up weeks of controversy in India, sparking calls from
The CCI said in March that the story corroborated evidence it had received against Amazon, while the Enforcement Directorate, India's
financial-crime fighting agency, asked Amazon for information and documents related to the company's Indian operations, Reuters has
office, Ingeneri wrote, in an apparent reference to the February article, that a Reuters reporter had used "sensationalist language" and
relied on Amazon's "activity before 2018 that was aggressive but not illegal at the time." The next sentence in the email was redacted.In
response to questions from Reuters, a spokeswoman for Amazon in India said the company had no comment
Amazon has previously told Reuters it "does not give preferential treatment to any seller on its marketplace," and that it "treats all
sellers in a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner."But internal Amazon documents show that the e-commerce giant discounted its
fees to certain sellers on its platform, and that a few dozen of Amazon's more than 400,000 sellers in early 2019 accounted for about
two-thirds of the e-commerce site's online sales.The note prepared for Kerry summarized the Reuters story's findings
Among them: that Amazon senior executive Jay Carney had been advised by colleagues in 2019 not to disclose to India's ambassador in
Washington that two sellers on Amazon's Indian website accounted for a large chunk of its sales
Amazon holds indirect equity stakes in those sellers.From 2009 to 2011, Carney served as President Biden's communications director when
Biden was vice president, before going on to serve as press secretary to President Barack Obama
The note for Kerry identified Carney as "Amazon Senior Vice President and former Obama Administration spokesman." Carney had no comment for
this article, the Amazon spokeswoman said.Under the headline "If Asked: Allegations of Amazon E-Commerce Violations," the note stated: "We
have seen a February 17 Reuters report raising concerns about United States e-commerce companies' practices in India and note many of the
allegations have been previously reviewed by the Competition Commission of India without any negative findings." The email with the note was
marked "SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED.""The Reuters article repeated prior allegations made by small traders," the note stated
The partially redacted note also stated that "since 2013, Amazon has invested over $5.5 billion in India, employs 100,000 Indians, and
supports 400,000 vendors on its market."India's strict foreign investment rules for e-commerce have caused friction between Washington and
New Delhi, and frustrated United States firms with online businesses in India, such as Amazon and Walmart Inc.The CCI in January 2020
launched a probe into Amazon on allegations it was favoring certain sellers, but the investigation has been on hold as the company mounted a
A separate antitrust complaint by a group of online sellers filed against Amazon is currently pending review by the CCI.
