India's e-commerce rules regressive: Walmart told US government

Walmart told the US government privately in January that India's new investment rules for e-commerce were regressive and had the potential to hurt trade ties, a company document seen by Reuters showed.

The lobbying effort yielded no result at the time - India implemented the new rules from Feb. 1 - but the document underlines the level of concern at Walmart about the rules. Differences over e-commerce regulations have become one of the biggest issues in frayed trade ties between New Delhi and Washington.

"It came as a total surprise ... this is a major change and a regressive policy shift," Walmart's Senior Director for Global Government Affairs Sarah Thorn told the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in an an e-mail on Jan. 7. Just months earlier, Walmart had invested $16 billion in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart, its biggest ever acquisition globally.

In a statement to Reuters on Thursday, Walmart said it regularly offers input to the U.S. and Indian governments on policy issues and this was a "past issue and Walmart and Flipkart are looking ahead"."Walmart has had good consultations with the government of India," a company spokeswoman added.The USTR did not respond to a request for comment.

In the January letter to the USTR, Walmart said it wanted a six-month delay in the implementation of the rules, but that did not happen. Washington did raise concerns about the policy with New Delhi, but India gave a non-committal response, an Indian trade ministry official told Reuters at the time. Walmart's problems in India highlight the regulatory complications it faces as it restructures its international business to boost growth and online sales. Mexico's competition regulator recently blocked its acquisition of delivery app Cornershop, while in Britain it was stopped from merging its British arm Asda with rival Sainsbury's.

These issues, however, have failed to unnerve Walmart investors. Walmart shares have risen 21 percent, compared with a 19 percent increase for the S&P 500 since the start of the year.