It was reported last week that it paid Rs 8,546 crore in legal fees in India in the 2019-20 fiscal year-part of which was used to bribe government officials-and Amazon wrote in a letter to Piyush Goyal that it only paid Cost 52 crore rupees. Attorney fees for the year. It stated that the reported figures appeared to be due to misunderstandings. Amazon has written to Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry, claiming that its legal fees in India for fiscal year 2020 are 520 million rupees instead of 8,546 crore as reported. Quick follow-up: Last week, the news portal The Morning Context reported that after a whistleblower claimed to have paid part of the fees to New Delhi-based Vikas Chopra, Amazon initiated an internal In the investigation, Vikas Chopra represented the company as an external legal counsel and was used to bribe government officials. Amazon’s response: In its letter to Goyal on September 28, the company stated that these reports are inaccurate and “seems to be derived from a misunderstanding of certain documents,” especially the “legal and professional fees” item, which includes a large number of non-legal spend. The letter stated that these reports “wrongly implied” that an entity called Amazon India Ltd was a subsidiary of Amazon and incorrectly attributed its legal fees to Amazon. Quoting: “Last week, some media began to report that Amazon’s business in India spent a total of Rs. 845.6 billion in’legal fees’ between 2019 and 2020. When these requests were made, the article cited the’public documents’ submitted by Amazon. … Several of the articles falsely suggested that an entity named “Amazon India Ltd.” was a subsidiary of Amazon and attributed its legal costs to Amazon,” the letter reads. Amazon has attached a list of shareholders of Amazon India Ltd. to its letter, which can be made public to the Department of Corporate Affairs. According to this list, two real estate companies-Parsvnath Developers Limited and Aadharshila Contractors Private Limited-own Amazon India Limited.
News Source : The Economic Times
