[Trushil Vyas is a 3rd year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.]
The Competition Commission of India (CCI), in an order dated 12 February 2026, imposed a penalty of INR 27.38 crore on Intel for violating multiple subsections of section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002. The case concerned Intel’s “India Specific Warranty Policy” (2016), under which warranty claims for boxed microprocessors (BMPs) were entertained in India only if the products were purchased from authorised Indian distributors. Warranty claims for products purchased from authorised distributors abroad were not honoured in India and were instead redirected to the country of purchase.
A significant aspect of the case was the submission made by the informant, Matrix, that Intel’s refusal to honour warranties in India for BMPs purchased abroad, even when genuine, amounted to discrimination under section 4(2)(a)(i), since Intel did not impose similar restrictions in several other jurisdictions where global warranties were honoured. This submission was accepted by the CCI.
This post argues that by accepting this reasoning, the CCI has effectively implied that multinational enterprises must ensure that their India-specific policies conform to those followed in other jurisdictions. It is contended that this approach is flawed and risks setting a dangerous precedent for the analysis of discriminatory conduct under competition law. The next section examines the CCI’s reasoning and the shortcomings inherent in it.
CCI’s Reasoning and its Shortcomings
After considering the report of the Director General (DG), the investigative arm of the Competition Commission of India, along with the parties’ submissions, the CCI noted that Intel maintained a worldwide warranty policy alongside separate policies for India, Australia, and China. It observed that prior to 2016, the worldwide manufacturer’s warranty applied in India, and that this changed with the introduction of the India-specific policy. The CCI further noted that the warranty policies in Australia and China did not contain restrictions similar to those imposed in India. It also observed that South Asia broadly exhibits similar conditions of competition, and that the India-specific policy deprived Indian consumers of the benefits of the worldwide warranty. On this basis, the CCI concluded that “Indian consumers are discriminated vis-à-vis other consumers in the rest of the world or even in the South Asian region”, and accordingly held the policy to be discriminatory in nature.
However, such a cross-jurisdictional policy comparison is fundamentally flawed due to its ignorance of the relevant market. The exercise of establishing the relevant market serves to establish the framework within which competition policy is to be applied by the CCI [CCI v. Bharti Airtel; CCI v. Co-ordination Committee]. In a previous section of the order, the relevant market was defined as one for BMPs for desktop PCs in India.
By comparing the India-specific policy with Intel’s policies in other jurisdictions, the CCI disregarded the geographical dimension of this market, namely India. The appropriate inquiry should have been whether the policy resulted in discrimination between similarly placed consumers within India. Instead, the CCI assessed whether Indian consumers, as a whole, were disadvantaged in comparison to consumers in other jurisdictions. In doing so, it stepped outside the framework established by its own market definition.
Moreover, in CCI v. Schott Glass, the Supreme Court clarified that in order to establish a violation of section 4(2)(a), it must first be established that transactions which are materially equivalent in every commercially relevant respect have been accorded materially different treatment. Further, if the challenged differentiation is open on identical terms to every similarly-placed purchaser, section 4(2)(a) will not be attracted.
In the present case, it is difficult to say that consumers in India are materially equivalent in “every commercially relevant respect” with consumers in other countries. The geographical divide between various countries serves as a sufficient differentiator to dispel the argument that Indian consumers and consumers from other regions being materially equivalent. While consumers within India can certainly be said to be similarly-placed, it would be erroneous to say that Indian consumers are similarly-placed with consumers from other jurisdictions. Different countries have different regulatory regimes which affect how multinational companies may conduct their business. This means that adapting differing prices and policies for different countries is often better for their operability and profitability.
The CCI’s reasoning may be seen as reflecting excessive consumer protectionism, which raises an important question: whether the present case was appropriately addressed under the Competition Act, or whether it would have been better suited for resolution under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (CPA). The next section examines this issue.
Consumer Protection Act: A Better Alternative?
The CPA allows consumers to raise complaints with respect to multiple types of conducts, one of them being “unfair contracts”. Section 2(46) of the CPA defines an “unfair contract”, and section 2(46)(vi) includes contracts which impose unreasonable conditions to the disadvantage of consumers under this definition. Given that the India-specific policy ultimately forms part of Intel’s standard contractual arrangement with consumers, this policy could have been termed as an “unfair contract” under section 2(46) of the CPA and could have been scrutinised by consumer bodies as well. Such a complaint would have been entertained either by the State Commission or the National Commission established under the CPA, depending on the value of goods or services paid as consideration [sections 47(1)(a)(ii) and 58(1)(a)(ii) respectively]. The relevant Commission, on finding that any term in a contract is unfair, has the power to declare such unfair terms to be null and void [section 49(2) and 59(2), as the case may be].
However, while consumer bodies could also have been approached here, competition law remains a better fit. Unlike the CPA, which is remedial and can merely invalidate unfair terms, the Competition Act envisages broader regulatory consequences as well. Under section 27(a), the CCI can direct the enterprise in question to cease and desist from its abusive conduct, and it can also impose penalties under section 27(b) in order to deter the enterprise from repeating such conduct in the future. Further, the “unfairness” of the policy could have been checked not only under the CPA, but also under the Competition Act.
By holding Intel’s India-specific policy to be discriminatory, CCI aimed to establish a violation of section 4(2)(a)(i). However, section 4(2)(a) itself prohibits not only discriminatory conditions or prices, but also unfair conditions and prices. Section 4(2)(a) states that the condition under scrutiny must be “unfair or discriminatory”, and not “unfair anddiscriminatory”. The word “or” in this subsection is disjunctive, and implies that a condition under the CCI’s scrutiny may be unfair without being discriminatory, and vice versa. Moreover, as held in the case of MCX Stock Exchange, the “unfairness” of a condition or price must be analysed either in relation to customers or in relation to competitors, on the basis of facts of a case.
In the present case, the CCI could have held that the India-specific policy was unfair in relation to Indian consumers without engaging in a discrimination analysis. This would have yielded the same outcome, namely a violation of section 4(2)(a)(i).
The issue, therefore, is not one of jurisdictional suitability. The CCI was well within its remit to address the conduct. Rather, the problem lies in the analytical approach adopted. By grounding its finding in discrimination, the CCI relied on a flawed framework, when a straightforward unfairness analysis was available. While the policy is undoubtedly disadvantageous to Indian consumers, the CCI ought to have remained within the limits of its analytical framework, particularly when a simpler and more robust route to the same conclusion was readily available.
Conclusion
As can be seen, the CCI’s reasoning with regard to discriminatory conditions in the Intel order suffers from serious shortcomings. Through this reasoning, the CCI has essentially implied that companies operating worldwide must ensure that their policies in India conform to their policies in other jurisdictions. This reasoning takes away the ability for companies to adapt their policies and, in effect, dictates how companies should structure their business strategies. While such a reasoning would be suitable under EU competition law, given its additional function of fulfilling the single market imperative, such a function is not envisaged for the CCI, and is in fact a dangerous regulatory overreach. This is not to say that Intel’s India-specific policy is not without its problems. However, as pointed out previously, Intel could have been penalised under section 4(2)(a)(i) for unfairness, and the entire discrimination analysis could have been avoided entirely.
Moreover, as pointed out previously, the CCI’s reasoning here can be seen as excessive consumer protectionism. While competition law itself does have a consumer protection function to it, the CCI’s approach in the present case is not the manner in which this function should be achieved. The reasoning adopted by the CCI to hold the India-specific policy to be discriminatory sets a dangerous precedent for future discrimination-related cases, signalling that policies which apply uniformly across India may still be discriminatory if they are not in conformity with policies in other jurisdictions. It will have to be seen whether this case marks an aberration in the CCI’s discrimination-based jurisprudence, or if it becomes the gold standard moving forward.
– Trushil Vyas
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