Amazon has decided to discontinue its joint venture in India with billionaire Narayana Murthy’s company. The seven-year-old joint venture, Prione Business Services Pvt., will cease to operate from mid-2022, the companies announced on Monday.  The decision comes after a setback for the JV in the Supreme Court.

Prione Business Services Pvt., is owned by Jeff Bezos’s Seattle-based e-commerce giant and Catamaran Ventures LLP, the private investment firm of Infosys Ltd. co-founder Murthy.

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The partners have “mutually decided to not continue their joint venture beyond the end of its current term,” they said in a statement, reports Bollomberg. The joint venture has enabled over 300,000 sellers and businesses to go online and enabled 4 million merchants with digital payment capabilities, they said.

The decision comes soon after the Supreme Court of India rejected petitions by Amazon and another e-commerce site, Flipkart to halt a probe against them started by the Competition Commission of India (CCI). 

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“We expect big giants like Amazon, Flipkart to volunteer for inquiry and transparency and you don’t even want it,” Chief Justice N.V. Ramana said in the ruling. “Inquiry has to be permitted,” he added.

The CCI probe was initiated after some small retailers said the practices followed by Amazon were unfair and illegal. The local retailers alleged the behemoths abused their dominance through deep discounts, exclusive tie-ups and favourable backing of certain vendors. The CCI then started a probe last year into the company and Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart . 

Amazon Inc and Catamaran Ventures came together to set up Prione in 2014, a year after Amazon began selling in India. The US retailer owned 49% and Catamaran Ventures 51% stakes. 

Prione also set up a fully-owned unit called Cloudtail that sold goods online. It grew to be one of the largest sellers on Amazon, forging agreements with premium brands like Apple and OnePlus. Cloudtail vended over a third of the goods sold on Amazon. This was followed by India changing rules to bar platforms such as Amazon from selling products from affiliates.

Amazon had been slowly lowering its stake in Prione and in February of 2019 lowered its stake to 24%, while Catamaran Ventures raised its holding to 76%. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), a group that represents millions of small retailers, alleged that the restructuring was just another way to evade rules. Both the companies, however, held that all laws were followed.