The acquisition of Prione Business Services by Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources has been approved by the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Prione was a joint venture between Catamaran, founded by Narayan Murthy, and Amazon. Cloudtail India, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, is one of Amazon’s top sellers in the country.
On March 9, CCI announced the launch of a microblogging site.
In December, Amazon announced its intention to buy Prione.
So far, Amazon and Catamaran have jointly controlled Prione Business Services, whose fully owned subsidiary Cloudtail India has been extensively scrutinised for possible FDI violations.
Amazon and Catamaran also declared on August 9 last year that the joint venture will not be extended beyond its present period of May.
Following the Supreme Court’s judgement allowing the CCI to investigate Amazon’s alleged anti-competitive activities, this decision was made.
It’s unclear how Amazon plans to replace Countail’s business on its platform, given e-commerce regulations prohibit marketplaces from owning any of the businesses run by its merchants.
In India, e-tailers are known to be having a set of preferred vendors who get a majority of the business generated by these companies.
In 2018, the government issued Press Note 2, which updated the previous Press Note 3. It requested that marketplaces verify that their platforms do not offer the items of their group companies.
Following the explanation, Amazon, which is also said to obtain the majority of its business via Cloudtail, restructured its Indian operations.
Catamaran Ventures increased its stake in Prione Business Services in February 2019. Amazon Asia’s share in Cloudtail was decreased to 24 percent from 49 percent previously, while Catamaran Ventures’ stake increased to 76 percent from 51 percent previously.