[Sumit Jain is at the Centre for Competition Law and Economics (CCLE)] Through its order dated 16 April 2019 in Umar Javed v. Google LLC, the Competition Commission of India initiated a probe against Google Inc. for its potential abuse of dominant position on the Android platform. The order remains curious from multiple standpoints. First, it was not made public until as late as 18 June 2019...
Competition Commission on Regulating Distribution of Pharmaceutical Products
[Anupriya Dhonchak is a IV year student at the National Law University, Delhi] The pharmaceutical sector merits close competition scrutiny because the practices by multiple market players in the sector play a crucial role in determining sustainable access to affordable medicines. The nexus among manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers gives rise to unique competition concerns due to the...
Competition Law Issues in the Indian Telecom Sector: Analysis of Recent Developments
[Varun Kannan is a 5th year law student at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata] The telecom sector in India has witnessed intense competition over the past decade. The arrival of Reliance Jio and the Vodafone-Idea merger reinforce the steep competition that exists in this sector – which forces the market players to continuously enhance their performance and gain an edge over...
Competition Commission of India: Emerging Appellate Body for the Sectoral Regulators
[Bhaskar Simha L. N. and Sumit Jain are currently working with the Centre for Competition Law and Economics (CCLE)] The Competition Commission of India (CCI) was established by the Competition Act, 2002 to promote and sustain competition in the Indian market. The said piece of legislation drew no distinction for sectoral regulators and allowed the CCI to look into every domain, barring sovereign...
Anti-trust and E-commerce: Impact of the 2018 FDI Policy Review
[Anand Nandakumar is a final year BA LLB (Hons.) student at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi] On May 31 2019, the US President signed the Presidential Proclamation that would terminate India from the list of beneficiary developing countries to the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). The Proclamation states that the termination was a result of India’s failure to...
Clipping the Powers of the CCI: Reflections from the Bharti Airtel Case
[Vrinda Aggarwal and Advik Rijul Jha are Fourth Year Law Students (BA-LLB) at Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat, Haryana] On 5 December 2018, the Supreme Court held that when there is a conflict between the jurisdiction of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the latter is to prevail. Under section 18 of the Competition Act, 2002, the CCI...
The Need to Revisit Merger Control Thresholds in a Data Driven Economy
[Priyadarsini T P is a 4th year B.A LL.B (Hons) student at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi] Implications of data on competition are manifold. One of the ways in which these manifest is when a horizontal merger takes place between two undertakings in a market where data are the input for delivery of a certain service. The adverse effects may be more serious when the market...
Who Does India’s Draft Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox actually Enable?
[Anupriya Dhonchak is a student at the National Law University New Delhi A longer version of this post is available on the Kluwer Competition Law Blog] One of the salient recommendations of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Working Group’s Report on FinTech and Digital Banking was the introduction of a regulatory sandbox in India. A regulatory sandbox is an innovative tool which allows market...
Specially Defined Relevant Markets: A Case for Reconsideration
[Kavya Lalchandani is a 3rd year Student at National Law University Odisha] Abuse of dominant position is defined under section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002 as the ability of an enterprise to behave independently of the competitive forces in the market and affect the consumers in its favour. It is a position of strength that is enjoyed by a particular enterprise in the relevant market. Being a...
Objective Justification in Abuse of Dominance Cases in India
[Basu Chandola is a BBA LLB graduate (batch of 2018) from the National Law University Odisha. The concept of objective justification provides that a dominant enterprise will not be abusing its dominant position if it can provide a justification for its conduct. Though the concept is well-accepted in the European Union, its position in Indian competition law is ambiguous. This post seeks to...
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