bengaluru as ecommerce companies evaluate the implications of the new policy on fdi in ecommerce legal experts said there are a few steps that they can take to ensure their business models are not hit badlysome lawyers who work closely with ecommerce companies said one option is to move court to get their existing business structures such as joint ventures excluded from the new policy they may also tie up with wholesalers across different jurisdictions to sell goods to vendors on similar terms to work around restrictions on exercising ownership or control of inventorywith just about a month left for the new norms to come into force ecommerce companies are doubling down to evaluate the various possibilities and have recalled employees in their public affairs and legal teams from their new year holidays to work on the issue walmarts global teams are evaluating the policy the new policy hits amazon and flipkart more severely because their group entities control much of the inventory sold on the platform advt it is likely that ecommerce marketplace companies and sellers on these platforms which might have equity participation from the marketplace companies may take the position that the existing business structures are excluded because the policy requirements do not seem to have a retrospective effect said abhishek sanyal an associate partner at economic laws practicethey may seek appropriate clarification on the ambiguity regarding equity participation to ensure exclusion of indirect investments in downstream entities of indian ownedandcontrolled jvs lastly companies may attempt to secure relief using courts intervention against the reasonableness of the 25 restriction on sale by domestic sellers through any single ecommerce platform sanyal addedhowever some industry members doubted if the exclusion will be allowed because there is no explicit mention of it in the policy ecommerce companies are also likely to partner with independent wholesalers with the revised policy stating that they cannot exercise ownership or control over inventory and that a vendor cannot make more than 25 of its purchases from the marketplace entity or group companiesthis puts a question mark on entities such as cloudtail appario retailnet and others that are partly owned or controlled by amazon and flipkart as well as large sellers on these platforms which have been sourcing mainly from the wholesale arms of these companies advt one approach would be for ecommerce entities to work with wholesalers who can sell goods to vendors on beneficial terms the key issue is how the ecommerce company and its group will structure transactions with such wholesalers and fund working capital requirements said archana tewary a partner at j sagar associatesrajiv chugh national leader for policy advisory and specialty services at ey india said that the time has come for ecommerce players to look at franchise channels rather than equity investments to do business in indiacompanies are also likely to go through industry associations to liaise with the government experts said as they have done in the past several industry members believe that unless the government effectively implements