CCI approves Amazon’s acquisition of Prione Business Services

Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources has been approved by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to purchase Prione Business Services.

Amazon Asia-Pacific Resources has been approved by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to purchase Prione Business Services. Catamaran, managed by Narayan Murthy, and Amazon formed Prione as a joint venture.

On March 9, CCI revealed this news on the microblogging site, Twitter.

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In December, Amazon announced its intentions to buy Prione. Amazon and Catamaran jointly control Prione Business Services, whose fully owned subsidiary Cloudtail India has been regularly scrutinised for possible FDI violations.

Amazon and Catamaran declared on August 9 of last year that they will not extend the joint venture’s existing term, which ends in May 2022.

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.

Catamaran Ventures increased its investment in Prione Business Services in February 2019. Amazon Asia’s share in Cloudtail was decreased to 24% from 49% previously, while Catamaran Ventures’ stake increased to 76% from 51% previously.

After this, Cloudtail ceased to be an Amazon group business as a result of this, making it compliant with the criteria on paper but not serving the goal for which the rules were established. Even when the problem was being worked out on paper, the corporation continued to face criticism from offline merchants.