By Matthew Perlman

Law360 (June 10, 2020, 6:03 PM EDT) -- The U.K.'s competition enforcer on Wednesday extended the deadline for its review of Amazon's planned minority investment in Deliveroo, after competitors questioned the delivery services' contention that it needs the money to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Competition and Markets Authority provisionally cleared the move in April when Deliveroo told enforcers it needed the infusion from Amazon to help overcome turmoil in the restaurant industry being caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

But competitors, including Domino's and the recently merged delivery service Just Eat Takeaway.com NV, have raised concerns through responses to the agency about the decision and the actual impact of the health and economic crisis on Deliveroo.

The CMA said in a notice on Wednesday that it has now extended a June 11 deadline for it to reach a final conclusion on the transaction until Aug. 6 so it can "take full account of representations received from the parties and third parties in response to the provisional findings and to reflect the impact of coronavirus" in its assessment.

"The inquiry group considers that completion of its investigation and the publication of its final report will not be possible within the original reference period," the notice said.

A spokesperson for Deliveroo said in a statement Wednesday that further delay is disappointing, especially considering the volatile environment created by COVID-19 and called for a swift resolution.

"Deliveroo has repeatedly provided evidence to show that Deliveroo and Amazon offer completely different services, will remain distinct entities, and this investment will in fact clearly strengthen competition," the statement said. "As a British born and British based company, this investment is good news for the British economy and the UK tech sector."

In a response filed with the CMA on May 18, Just Eat Takeaway said enforcers should question whether "Deliveroo is providing fully accurate information and context about the impact of COVID-19 on its business." They should also check to see if the company has taken appropriate steps to try and mitigate the impact, according to the response.

While Deliveroo told the agency that it has seen a significant decline in business as a result of the pandemic, with drops in orders and restaurants closing, the response said the CMA did not account for factors that have had, or should have had, a positive effect on the company.

"With high street restaurants closed for dining, more people staying indoors and practicing social distancing, online food marketplaces, including Deliveroo, Takeaway and UberEats are now experiencing increased demand for their services," the response said. "In addition, pubs and restaurants that never offered home delivery in the past are now starting to do so by using services offered by the food delivery companies."

This leads Just Eat Takeaway to question whether Deliveroo's financial decline was due to the pandemic or "the quality of its business model and decision-making relating to its pricing." The response also pointed to increases in Google searches for "Deliveroo" and downloads of its app during the pandemic.

"It seems that the view of the CMA is based either on incorrect or misleading data or on an extremely narrow 1-2 week period at the very start of the COVID-19 crisis in the UK," the response said. "JETA would urge the CMA to reassess whether the COVID-19 crisis has continued to have a negative impact on Deliveroo's business."

In a response filed by Domino's Pizza Group on May 14, the pizza chain contended that the CMA had stopped exploring the possibility of an alternative investor for Deliveroo because enforcers found the analysis too speculative. But it's "only speculative because the CMA declined to investigate and gather evidence," Domino's said.

"The CMA gives no reason for its apparent failure to interrogate the alternative investor on what they would have done had they made their investment in lieu of the Amazon announcement," the response said.

Domino's and its franchisees also remain concerned about the competitive effects of the transaction, according to the response. The move will "reinforce the dominance of the Amazon ecosystem and opens up the real possibility of this dominance being leveraged into restaurant home delivery to the detriment of consumers."

"Just as Amazon marketplace has become an essential route to market for ecommerce retailers, the same could become true of restaurant/grocery home delivery," the response said.

Amazon filed its own response with the CMA on May 14 as well, contending that its investment would not have hurt competition even absent the COVID-19 pandemic. The e-commerce giant pushed back against the agency's "unprecedented finding" that the deal would give Amazon material influence over Deliveroo.

The undisclosed minority shareholding is set to give Amazon a single seat on a board with seven voting members, the response said, arguing that the CMA has not found in the past that similar deals gave the investor material influence.

A spokesperson for Amazon said in a statement Wednesday that it's committed to the investment and called Deliveroo an innovative "customer-obsessed company with a mission-driven leader."

"Our investment will benefit both consumers of Deliveroo's service and its small business restaurant partners," the statement said. "UK businesses like Deliveroo continue to benefit from broad access to investors and supporters."

Amazon led a $575 million funding round for London-based Deliveroo in May 2019 alongside existing investors T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Management & Research Co. and Greenoaks Capital. Deliveroo said at the time the money would be used to help grow its engineering team in the U.K. and expand its services' reach.

The company said at the time it had raised a total of $1.53 billion.

The CMA launched an investigation into the transaction in July and referred it for an in-depth review in December. The agency found the deal could discourage Amazon from re-entering the online restaurant food delivery market in the U.K. The company shuttered its Amazon Restaurants business in the country in November 2018 and its U.S. version of the service last year.

The initial investigation also found issues in the market for grocery deliveries where Amazon and Deliveroo currently compete in the U.K.

--Additional reporting by Christopher Cole. Editing by Alyssa Miller.

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