As per the latest reports coming in, the Delhi High Court has banned e-commerce giants like Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal from selling products of direct sellers such as Amway, Modicare, and Oriflame on their platform without prior consent.
As per the complainants, the e-commerce giants have been selling products of Amway, Oriflame, and Modicare on their platforms at hugely discounted rates. This obviously ends up in the companies facing unnecessary losses.
But this won’t happen anymore, as the High Court has itself banned the e-commerce giants from selling their products without taking consent of the concerned companies.
Delhi High Court Bans E-Commerce Websites From Selling Products Without Consent
Three multi-level marketing companies, Amway, Oriflame, and Modicare have filed a complaint against e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, 1MG, and Snapdeal for selling products on their platforms at lowered prices. This led to the companies incurring heavy financial losses.
They also have alleged that the e-commerce platforms have been indulging in some kind of tampering or contaminating the products. They have also said 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 the Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and 1MG from selling their products. The Court has specified that prior consent has to be taken by the platforms from the companies.
The court is of the opinion that it is easy for sellers to sell products on these platforms without verification or a quality check. The court credited this to the platforms not following their own code of conduct and policies, which is what is least expected of them.
In its 225 page order, the court has also said, “Thus, this court has no hesitation in holding that the continued sale of the plaintiffs’ (Amway, Modicare and Oriflame) 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.”
Products Tampered At Warehouses of E-Commerce Platform Sellers
Some local commissioners inspected the warehouses of specific sellers on Amazon, Flipkart, Healthkart, Snapdeal, 1MG. Based on the report submitted by these commissioners, the court came to the conclusion that not only were the MRPs manipulated to be higher, but names were wrongly attributed too.
Additionally, codes and inner seals of the products were totally unauthentic, and dates were changed on the expired products as well.
If you are buying any of the products from Amway, Modicare, and Oriflame, make sure you buy them from the sales representatives of the companies, until authorized products are available on the e-commerce platforms for you to buy.