Many e-commerce companies come to India and ‘blatantly flout’ laws, says Union minister Piyush Goyal

Union minister Piyush Goyal has said that many of the e-commerce companies that have come to India “very blatantly” violate the rules of the country.

“Many of these large ecommerce companies have come into India and very blatantly flouted the laws of the land...in more ways than one,” he told a virtual event hosted by the Stanford India Policy and Economics Club on Saturday. “I’ve had several engagements with these large companies...particularly the American ones. I can see a little bit of an arrogance...and their ability to finance large amounts of money in the initial stages to try and capture the Indian market or larger part of the Indian market particularly in certain products...to the detriment of mom-and-pop stores.”

The Indian minister said that the e-commerce companies were using their access to a large amount of low-cost capital to carry out predatory pricing practices. Goyal, however, did not name the companies he was talking about or specify which laws had been violated.