On August 9, Amazon.com, Inc. and the parent of one of its biggest Indian sellers, Cloudtail, announced the end of their joint ventures after years of allegations of Cloudtail receiving preferential treatment.
The decision comes after Reuters had conducted an investigation in February based on Amazon’s documents that displayed that the company had provided preferential treatment for years to a small group of sellers, including Cloudtail, and used them to bypass the country’s foreign investment laws.
A joint venture between billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran, the parent organization of Cloudtail, and Amazon coming up for renewal on May 19 next year. Nevertheless, both sides informed in a joint statement that they had mutually decided to not extend the JV beyond the date.
The President of Catamaran, M. D. Ranganath, stated, “As our JV with Amazon reaches the end of its tenure, I reflect on this successful partnership that introduced the power of digitization and empowered hundreds of thousands of SMBs across big and small towns.”
“Amazon and Catamaran entered into a JV in the early days of e-commerce in India with a shared vision of transforming hundreds of thousands of small businesses in a fast-changing digital world, by providing online capabilities enabling them to access customers both in India and globally”, added Amit Agarwal, Amazon India’s Global Senior Vice President.
However, the parties did not specify the reason they decided to end their JV.
