‘Arrogant’ US e-commerce firms flout India’s laws, Piyush Goyal says

New Delhi: India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has ratcheted up the heat on US e-commerce giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc., accusing them of arrogance and of flouting local laws by indulging in predatory pricing practices.

Goyal said companies were using their scale and access to large pools of low-cost capital to indulge in predatory pricing practices “to the detriment of mom-and-pop stores”.

“A number of these large e-commerce companies have come into India and very blatantly flouted the laws of the land in more ways than one,” he told a virtual event late on Saturday. “I’ve had several engagements with these large companies, particularly the American ones, and I can see a little bit of arrogance.”