The order comes months after the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) asked the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to investigate the companies for breaching platform neutrality by providing priority to the exclusive contractors.
Key points to note –
- NRAI represents more than 5,00,000 restaurants across India.
- Other than complaints about platform neutrality, complaint by NRAI had also included misuse of consumer data, exorbitant commissions, delayed payments, massive discounting, one-sided clauses etc.
- CCI has for now only ordered enquiry into the platform neutrality and rejected other complaints.
To me, the subject enquiry seems part and parcel of running these businesses and don’t expect a significant long term operational implications.
Some fines might be levied and businesses would continue as usual with minor tweaks.