Walmart told US govt India e-commerce rules regressive, warned of trade impact

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Walmart told the U.S. government privately in January that India's new investment rules for e-commerce were regressive and had the potential to hurt trade ties, a company document seen by Reuters showed.

The lobbying effort yielded no result at the time - India implemented the new rules from Feb. 1 - but the document underlines the level of concern at Walmart about the rules. Differences over e-commerce regulations have become one of the biggest issues in frayed trade ties between New Delhi and Washington.

"It came as a total surprise ... this is a major change and a regressive policy shift," Walmart's Senior Director for Global Government Affairs Sarah Thorn told the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in an an e-mail on Jan. 7.