Keeping Up with Competition - April 2026
A monthly newsletter by Axiom5
Welcome to the latest edition of Keeping Up with Competition, where we highlight the key competition law developments from March 2026.
Last month was marked by the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) application of business-justification reasoning across a range of sectors. Following a full investigation, the CCI closed an inquiry into BookMyShow on merits, upholding BMS’s commercial justifications across most of the alleged abuses. The CCI closed four other cases at the threshold stage, drawing clear jurisdictional and evidentiary lines. We discuss these cases further below.
1. The CCI closes the BookMyShow case, upholding business justifications for exclusive ticketing agreements (see here)
The CCI’s order on BookMyShow is a significant post-investigation closure. The informant, a competing online ticketing portal, alleged that BookMyShow (BMS) abused its dominant position in the market for online intermediation services for booking of movie tickets in India under the Competition Act, 2002 (Competition Act) through exclusive agreements with cinemas, discriminatory revenue sharing, and restrictive data ownership clauses.
The CCI confirmed BMS’ dominance. The Director General (DG) found BMS’s market share in the relevant market ranging between 70-80% in booking volume, with first-mover advantage from 2007, extensive vertical integration, and strong network effects. Both the CCI and the DG noted that other players such as Amazon and Justickets chose to collaborate with BMS rather than compete independently, a telling indicator of market power.1
The substantive analysis, however, is instructive. The CCI diverged from the DG’s conclusion on all 4 allegations of abuse of dominance.
Seat reservation. The CCI accepted BMS’s explanation that reserving a portion of seat inventory in single screen cinemas in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities is a practical necessity. BMS submitted that single screen cinemas lack real-time integration technology and this practice avoided double booking seats. It also clarified that unsold seats are returned to the theatre to be sold through the box-office before each show. The DG did not find BMS’s explanation plausible, and concluded that the seat reservation practice actually served to implement BMS’ arrangements with other aggregators, and amounted to the imposition of an unfair condition on single screen cinemas. However, the CCI disagreed, noting that the DG’s conclusion was based on its review of a single agreement and was insufficient to establish a broader pattern of abusive conduct.
Discriminatory data and revenue sharing. The DG found that BMS co-owned customer data with large multiplexes, but shared only hashed data with single-screen cinemas, and that BMS offered materially different revenue shares to different cinemas. In both cases, the DG concluded that BMS exploited its market position to impose discriminatory conditions on weaker counterparties. The CCI overturned both findings on the same legal principle - the prohibition on discriminatory conduct under the Competition Act applies only where the dominant enterprise treats similarly-situated parties unequally. Single-screen cinemas and large multiplexes are not similarly situated. They differ materially in infrastructure, data handling capability, operational scale, and commercial significance. Since the two categories of cinemas do not constitute a homogenous class, no case of discriminatory abuse could be made out on either count.
Market foreclosure. The DG and the CCI analysed the nature of BMS’ exclusivity arrangements. BMS itself admitted to entering into short-term exclusive agreements that bar cinemas from directly or indirectly engaging any other party to facilitate online or remote ticket booking. The DG’s data showed that BMS had exclusive or quasi-exclusive arrangements. Under the exclusive agreements, cinemas could not independently appoint any third-party aggregator. Under non-exclusive agreements, the number of third-party aggregators a cinema could appoint was capped, meaning market access was restricted even without formal exclusivity. These arrangements were typically accompanied by interest-free security deposits or adjustable advances, and lock-in periods ranging from one to seven years, with termination clauses in many agreements operable only upon breach, meaning cinemas had no unilateral right of exit. While the DG concluded that this resulted in market foreclosure, the CCI ultimately found that the lock-in periods were commercially justified as recovery mechanisms for the advances paid, and that the staggered expiry of agreements meant the market was never fully foreclosed at any given time. The CCI concluded that the DG had not established the actual scale of foreclosure with sufficient clarity, since its analysis rested on a limited sample of agreements.
This order is an important marker for platform operators with exclusive distribution arrangements. The CCI appears willing to accept commercially coherent business justifications that are supported by evidence for practices that structurally entrench market position. This marks a deviation from the CCI’s approach in earlier digital markets cases,2 where it inferred harm (i.e. market foreclosure) from the structural design of the platforms’ arrangements, that further entrenched the platforms’ dominance in each case. In BookMyShow, the CCI applied a higher evidentiary bar, possibly reflecting the appellate pressure from Schott Glass (Supreme Court, 2025), which mandated proof of actual or potential anti-competitive effects in abuse of dominance cases.
Despite the apparent inconsistency in the CCI’s approach to platform conduct across these cases, businesses should document the commercial rationale for exclusivity arrangements, lock-in periods, and differential terms. They should also expect the kind of granular, agreement-level analysis that the DG attempted in BookMyShow to become the baseline for future investigations.
2. Four cases closed at threshold: insufficient evidence, wrong forum, and the limits of competition law
The CCI also closed four cases at the threshold stage under Section 26(2) of the Competition Act. Taken together, these closures reinforce three consistent principles: the CCI is not a substitute for sector-specific regulators unless there is a competition concern, competition law does not remedy individual commercial grievances, and complaints that are not backed by sufficient evidence of market-wide harm do not clear the threshold for initiating an investigation under the Competition Act.
Rapido — a matter for transport regulation. The CCI closed a complaint alleging that Rapido deploys unlicensed, white-plate motorcycles for its bike-taxi service. According to the informant (a competitor), this enabled it to undercut licensed rivals by 15-30% by avoiding the cost of commercial permits, insurance, and fitness certification. The CCI’s answer was unambiguous: whether Rapido’s vehicles comply with commercial transport requirements is a matter for the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The CCI found no evidence of a competition concern under the Competition Act and closed the case accordingly.
IndiGo and Air India — no collective dominance, and contractual dissatisfaction is not a competition concern. The CCI closed a complaint alleging that IndiGo and Air India coordinated on cancellation charges amounting to over 75% of the ticket price. Two important legal principles emerge. First, on cartel allegations, parallel pricing (i.e. similar cancellation charges) without evidence of coordination does not establish a concerted practice under Section 3(3) of the Competition Act. Second, and more fundamentally, the Competition Act does not recognise collective dominance. Section 4 is premised on a single enterprise holding a dominant position, and only that enterprise can be found to have abused such dominance. On the substance, the CCI noted that cancellation terms were publicly disclosed, uniformly applied, and voluntarily accepted by consumers at the time of booking. The informant also unsuccessfully attempted to merge this case with the ongoing DG investigation into IndiGo’s mass flight cancellations in December 2025. The CCI noted that the two cases are factually distinct. In the IndiGo investigation, it is the airline’s own unilateral conduct that allegedly harmed passengers who had no prior notice or recourse. Here, the consumer cancelled voluntarily, under terms published and agreed when making the booking. Dissatisfaction with a contractual bargain is not a competition concern, and the CCI made clear that the remedy lies elsewhere.
Zucol v. Google Play Store — individual grievances do not reopen established jurisprudence. The CCI also closed proceedings against Google, following complaints relating to the termination of a developer’s accounts for malware policy violations. While the CCI confirmed Google’s dominance in the market for app stores for Android OS in India, it closed the case for three reasons. First, the informant’s submissions to the CCI were inconsistent and withheld material facts.3 Second, Google had already reinstated the account in September 2025, a fact the informant withheld from the CCI. Third, the CCI reiterated its position in Liberty Infospace, that the terms and conditions in Google’s Developer Distribution Agreement, Developer Program Policy, and Relation Ban Policy are standard industry practice and that its appeals process is neither abusive nor discriminatory. The CCI’s order indicates that platform policy enforcement supported by transparent, consistently-applied policies aimed at ensuring platform safety and security, will survive threshold scrutiny for competition concerns.
BESCOM — bid-rigging requires proof of coordination between bidders, not just a procurement process the complainant disagrees with. The CCI also closed a complaint alleging that the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) structured a smart meter tender to favour two specific bidders. The informant alleged that BESCOM deviated from Karnataka’s standard procurement framework and suppressing the estimated contract value to artificially lower qualification thresholds. The CCI reviewed the statutory framework governing public procurement in Karnataka and found that BESCOM’s modifications were legally permissible. On comparative pricing, the CCI’s analysis of life cycle costs across six states showed BESCOM’s rates to be broadly comparable, with variations explained by differences in tenure, scope, and quantity. Critically, on the cartelisation allegation, the informant’s evidence related only to BESCOM’s conduct as procurer. There was no material indicating that the two bidders had acted in concert. This order reiterates the evidentiary standard for inquiring into potential bid rigging, and also emphasises the CCI’s view upholding procurers’ discretion to set tender conditions to suit their requirements.
The CCI notes that Amazon and Justickets obtain ticket inventory through BMS and supplies tickets directly to consumers, effectively functioning as a distribution channel for BMS rather than an independent aggregator.
See for instance, Mr. Umar Javeed & Ors. v. Google LLC & Anr. (2022), XYZ (Confidential) v. Alphabet Inc. & Ors. (2022) and In re: WhatsApp Privacy Policy (2024).
The informant’s correspondence with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology referenced termination of an employee for the policy violation, directly contradicting the informant’s position before the CCI that the app was developed by an external contractor.