Shopee's Alleged Express Monopoly in Indonesia Enters Hearing Phase

According to Indonesian media, the KOMISI PENGAWAS PERSAINGAN USAHA (KPPU) has completed its investigation and filing of a case related to alleged monopolization of the Shopee platform, citing KOMISI PENGAWAS PERSAINGAN USAHA (KPPU).

Eugenia Mardanugraha, a member of the KPPU commission, recently told the media, "The investigation and filing of the Shopee case has been completed, and it's only a matter of time before it goes to trial." He explained that in this case, Shopee has become the market leader of digital shopping platforms in Indonesia as a commercial player, although it competes fiercely with Tokopedia. "Due to this dominant position, KPPU believes that Shopee has the potential to conduct monopoly business, which is a violation of the Law on Commercial Competition (Law No. 5 of 1999)."

Therefore, he argues that Shopee should have a special license for each of the services . For example, Shopee must have a license for logistics operations for delivery/logistics services, OJK and BI licenses are required for financial services.

"Shopee also cannot prevent other companies from doing business on Shopee. the KPPU's investigation aims to preventing other delivery services from transacting on Shopee. It also violates Act 5 of 1999 if something similar happens with Shopee's other services." He emphasized.

This follows reports in February that Shopee was then facing an investigation by KPPU for allegedly monopolizing logistics services on the Shopee e-commerce platform. Google has also been accused of monopolization. KPPU suspected that the two tech giants, Shopee and Google, were engaging in some monopolistic practices, and KPPU concluded that Shopee Indonesia was allegedly monopolizing the delivery of goods through the use of Shopee Express, which was the only option for users to order goods to be delivered by Shopee Express. Shoppe has implemented a new policy after 2021 where users cannot choose their own preferred delivery service provider. Some sources even claim that this practice of Shopee has provided a boost to its e-commerce turnover to achieve a five-fold surge in two years.

KPPU have been monitoring the progress of TikTok's acquisition of 75% stake in Tokopedia. It seems that TikTok will have to go through a lot of tests if it wants to return and run its Indonesian e-commerce business smoothly.