NEW DELHI: India's antitrust watchdog raided units of global commodities trader Glencore and two other firms in Mumbai on Saturday in an inquiry into alleged collusion on the price of pulses, four sources with knowledge of the raids told Reuters.
A spokesman for Switzerland-based Glencore, Charles Watenphul, declined to comment, while India's Edelweiss, which sold its commodities trading business in November 2016, and the Export Trading Group did not respond to requests for comment. "The collusion by these companies led to higher prices of pulses," one of the government sources said, adding that the CCI's inquiry started three months ago.The investigation will also assess whether the companies have continued their alleged collusion even after the prices of pulses stabilized in recent years, the source said.The raids on five company offices in India's financial capital began on Friday and were concluded on Saturday.
The drought during 2015 wilted crops and exacerbated shortages of food such as protein-rich pulses and India, which consumes about 22 million tonnes of pulses annually, faced a shortfall of 7-8 million tonnes in 2015-16.