NEW DELHI (Diya TV) — Samsung Electronics has filed a legal complaint against India’s antitrust body, accusing the Competition Commission of India (CCI) of illegally detaining employees and seizing confidential data during a 2022 raid related to an antitrust probe involving Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. The South Korean smartphone giant filed the complaint in the High Court of Chandigarh on October 11 to appeal findings that it had breached competition laws.
The CCI had alleged that Samsung and other smartphone companies in collaboration with Amazon and Flipkart provided exclusive online launches of the products, violating India’s antitrust regulations. Samsung, in its complaint, described the raid as illegal, saying the commission copied privileged data without permission from its employees’ phones.
“The whole search operation is manifestly illegal, and any evidence gathered in the course of it should be seized and not relied upon,” Samsung India said in its 32-page legal document. The company also requested the court to restrain the CCI from relying upon the data gathered in the course of the raid.
The raid in October 2022 targeted one of Amazon’s vendors where the Samsung employees were detained and their devices were taken away without proper procedure. According to Samsung, it was cooperating with the investigation as a third party and was not involved in any unlawful activities.
Since then, Samsung has managed to get an injunction from the High Court to stop CCI from proceeding against the company. But the court has not decided on Samsung’s other pleas for the return of the seized data and to bar its use in the case.
The CCI has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court to take up Samsung’s challenge along with similar legal cases from 22 other parties that have also secured injunctions to delay the probe. The commission said these companies are trying to scuttle the probe, which found that Amazon and Flipkart were indulging in practices that favored some sellers on their platforms. Both the e-commerce majors have dismissed the allegations while brick-and-mortar retailers continue to criticize their discounting practices and alleged anti-competitive behavior.
In its investigation report from August, the CCI highlighted that exclusive deals, such as those for smartphone launches, undermine free and fair competition. Industry research by Counterpoint shows Samsung is one of the leading smartphone makers in India, holding a 14% market share. Online smartphone sales have surged, with more than 50% of sales occurring through e-commerce platforms last year, up from just 14.5% in 2013, according to estimates by Datum Intelligence.
