CCI Stated to Have Appointed Former WhatsApp Govt, Authorities Officers as New Members

India’s antitrust physique has appointed three new members to supervise circumstances, together with a former authorities official from the commerce ministry and a former interim compliance officer of WhatsApp, sources with direct information of the matter mentioned.

The new members appointed are Anil Agrawal, a former police official who just lately labored at India’s commerce ministry and labored on numerous startup initiatives and establishing of presidency’s e-commerce community, Open Network For Digital Commerce. He confirmed the appointment to Reuters, however declined to elaborate.

Two different appointments are Sweta Kakkad, a lawyer whose LinkedIn profile confirmed she is a former interim chief compliance officer at WhatsApp. The third appointee is Deepak Anurag, who’s a former official who labored at India’s Comptroller and Auditor General.

Kakkad and Anurag couldn’t be reached for remark. The appointment selections had been finalised and brought by the federal authorities, the sources mentioned.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) didn’t reply to queries from Reuters.

The appointments come at a time when CCI is investigating a number of high-profile world firms for alleged antitrust violations, together with Amazon, Walmart‘s Flipkart, Google and liquor big Pernod Ricard.

The appointment of senior members is crucial to functioning of CCI. In May, India named Ravneet Kaur as chairperson of the CCI. Kaur held a number of positions within the authorities over the past 20 years, together with as chairperson of India Tourism Development between 2017 and 2019.

© Thomson Reuters 2023