Food delivery major Zomato on Tuesday responded to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) investigation order saying that the antitrust watchdog has prima facie not found concerns with respect to their independence on levy of commissions or alleged bundling of services.
The Deepinder Goyal-led company stated that the CCI wants to probe aspects like preferential listing of restaurant partners and pricing parity. “We will continue to work closely with the Hon’ble Commission to assist them with their investigation and explain to the regulator why all of our practices are in compliance with competition laws and do not have any adverse effect on competition in India,” Zomato said in an exchange filing.
We intend to promptly comply with any recommendations given to us by the Hon’ble Commission, it added.
Zomato’s response came a day after the competition watchdog ordered an investigation into the conduct of both Zomato and Swiggy. The probe was ordered after a restaurant association had alleged increasing predatory behaviour by the food aggregators.
Why did CCI order a probe??
On a complaint filed by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which represents over 50,000 restaurant operators across the country, the fair trade regulator CCI has asked its Director General to conduct a detailed inquiry into the accusations and submit a report within 60 days.
The association had approached the antitrust body in July last year, seeking a probe into the allegations of data masking, deep discounting and violation of platform neutrality against Zomato and Swiggy.
“The Commission is of the view that prima facie a conflict of interest situation has arisen in the present case, both with regard to Swiggy as well as Zomato, because of the presence of commercial interest in the downstream market, which may come in the way of them acting as neutral platforms. This requires a detailed examination,” CCI states in its order.
