The Delhi High Court has banned e-commerce giants including Amazon and Flipkart from selling Amway and Oriflame products on their platform without prior consent.
Amway and Oriflame, along with multi-level marketing company Modicare, filed a complaint against e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, 1MG, and Snapdeal for selling products on their platforms at discounted prices, which led to the companies incurring heavy financial losses.
The companies also have alleged that the e-commerce platforms have been indulging in tampering or contamination of the products, and that the commodities sold may have been counterfeited and might not be authentic at all.
Siding with the companies, the Delhi High Court has restricted Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and 1MG from selling Amway, Oriflame and Modicare products, and has specified that prior consent from the companies must be taken by the platforms.
The Court’s opinion was that it is easy for e-sellers to sell products on these platforms without verification or a quality check. Based on a report submitted by local commissioners who inspected the warehouses of the e-sellers, the Court concluded that not only were the MRPs manipulated to be higher, but names were wrongly attributed, codes and inner seals of products were unauthentic and dates were changed on expired products.
In its 225-page order, the Court said, “This Court has no hesitation in holding that the continued sale of the plaintiffs’ products on the e-commerce platforms, without their consent, results in inducement of breach of contract, and tortious interference with contractual relationships of the plaintiffs with their distributors.”
