India: Announcement of upcoming e-commerce policy draft aiming to ensure operator impartiality

On 5 February 2021, Indian officials announced that the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is working on a new e-commerce policy, which includes measures to ensure the impartiality of operators in dealing with sellers. The draft of the policy document notes that operators should be impartial in their dealings with sellers. It says that e-commerce operators are obliged to ensure equal treatment of all sellers/vendors operating on their platforms and not have in place algorithms that could prioritize certain vendors or sellers. The policy would apply to domestic companies and international companies that are active in India.