Keeping up with Competition - February 2024
A monthly newsletter by Axiom5
Welcome to the fifth issue of Keeping up with Competition, our monthly newsletter. We recap the events in the world of Indian competition law and policy in January 2024.
Detailed summaries of orders passed by the CCI and other forums may be accessed here.
CCI notifies Competition Commission of India (General) Amendment Regulations, 2024 laying down rules regarding Interlocutory Applications
On 12 January 2024, the CCI notified the Competition Commission of India (General) Amendment Regulations, 2024. It defines an ‘Interlocutory Application’ (IA) as “an application filed before the Commission in a case instituted under section 19 of the Act, except those filed in compliance of any order or direction of the Commission”. It also inserts regulation 15(6) to specify rules regarding the registration, scrutiny, and validity of IAs, and the timelines in this respect. Regulation 49(1A) has been inserted to provide for a filing fee to accompany all IAs.
CCI’s Chairperson proposes a market study on Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) impact on businesses
Smt. Ravneet Kaur (Chairperson, CCI), while interacting with reporters, has said that the CCI will soon float a tender for conducting a market study on the impact of AI on businesses and services. Highlighting that technology markets require nuanced interventions, she stressed that CCI’s approach to data protection involves the scrutiny of access to data of third parties.
Merger control - a snapshot
The CCI approved 14 transactions, 2 of which were under the Green Channel route. The CCI also published 4 detailed orders in January (the summaries of these orders are available here). Further, the CCI received 8 new notices in January.
Behavioural cases
The CCI issued 4 closure orders in January. In two orders, the CCI noted that the informant(s) did not present sufficient evidence to either raise any competition concerns or substantiate their allegations. In Shine P. Sasidhar, the CCI observed that government policies may not give rise to competition law concerns. Further, in XYZ And Ola Electric Limited, the CCI assessed a market specific to electric (two) vehicles; however, it did not find any violations of Section 4 of the Competition Act, given that none of the opposite parties were found to be dominant in the said market. More detailed summaries of these orders are available here.
Lastly, the Madras High Court through its ruling in Info Edge (India) Ltd. vs. Google India Pvt Ltd also clarified that the CCI has the exclusive jurisdiction to determine competition law issues, and by virtue of Sections 61 and 62 of the Competition Act, the jurisdiction of civil courts was expressly barred in all such matters.