BY ANOUSHKA ANAND AND MD. HASHIR KHAN, FOURTH-YEAR STUDENTS AT NLU, JODHPUR Introduction India’s journey towards industrialization began in the mid-20th century, shortly after gaining independence from British colonial rule. The country sought to reduce poverty, promote self-sufficiency, and enhance economic growth. The establishment of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), thus, became a cornerstone of India’s planned development strategy, which aimed to harness and channel resources effectively for national development. Since then, PSUs have been instrumental in the development of strategic sec ..read more

BY PRANAY AGARWAL, THIRD-YEAR STUDENT AT GNLU, GUJARAT Introduction Unilateral terms of an agreement are seen with suspicion and are often subjected to legal challenge on the grounds that it is arbitrary and unreasonable in nature. The unilateral terms which are abusive and are imposed on others under a‘compelled’      agreement, are also covered within the purview of ‘practice’ encouraging anti-competitive agreements under Section 3(3) of the Competition Act, 2002 (“the Act”). Such a broad interpretation ..read more

BY PRIYAM INDURKHYA AND RITURAJ SINGH PARMAR, THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS AT NLIU, Bhopal Introduction CCI, the antitrust watchdog of India, has ordered a probe against food service aggregators like Zomato and Swiggy (FSAs) on a complaint filed by National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) for the violation of section 3 of the Competition Act. Out of the several anticompetitive malpractices alleged by NRAI, the CCI, vide order dated April 4, 2022, has observed that a prima facie case exists against Zomato and Swiggy on the following three conducts— (i) dual role played by FSAs by l ..read more

BY RANJUL MALIK, third-year student at ail, mohali Introduction Competition regulators across the world including places like Europe, the USA, Australia, Japan and even India are eyeing major amendments in their respective legislatures to better equip themselves in dealing with new and rising antitrust challenges. While there can be a combination of factors leading to this phenomenon, there can be no denying of the inability of regulators to control big tech as the primary factor for such global shifts. To this effect, the Competition Commission of India (‘CCI’) conventionally is likely to imp ..read more

By Rohan Mandal and Jeezan Riyaz, fourth and third year students at USLLS, GGSIPU, Delhi and NLIU, Bhopal respectively. In an exclusive arrangement as part of its strategic push, the food delivery giants, Zomato and Swiggy are all set to raise more than $1 billion, which will help them to leverage a position of dominance in the food delivery business. Duopolistic designs, coupled with pricing below the belt, and the viability of recuperating losses have led to a strategic dominance for these entities in the food delivery market, thereby harming the consumers in the long run.  Accordingly ..read more

By Esha Goyal, fourth-year student at NLSIU, Bangalore. Introduction On 21st January, 2020 Zomato acquired Uber Eats India in an all-stock transaction which gave Uber (the parent company of Uber Eats) a 9.9% stake in Zomato. At the time, Zomato was the second largest player in the delivery sector of the food service industry in India and Uber Eats was the third.  Competition Commission of India [‘CCI’] did not investigate this deal or hold it to be anticompetitive, and hence void immediately, and is only investigating now, a year after the acquisition concluded. The CCI was unable to act ..read more

by Sampurna Kanungo and Sanjana Bhasin, fifth year students at NMIMS Kirit P. Mehta School of Law, Mumbai The recent acquisition of the retail, wholesale, warehousing and logistics undertaking of the Future Group by Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (“Reliance-Future acquisition”) has caused a wave in the market as it is a combination of two key market players in the organised retail segment. Post the acquisition, Reliance would be poised to pose a formidable threat to rivals and local players within the market along with the elimination of a key competitor. Under these circumstances, an invest ..read more

BY MADHULIKA IYER, FOURTH-YEAR STUDENT AT SYMBIOSIS LAW SCHOOL, PUNE Introduction Owing to the economic uncertainty due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses are in search of potential avenues to wither this impact – one of which is the “failing firm” defence (‘FFD’).  The FFD is employed by businesses in cases where their transactions raise anticompetitive issues. The acquirer argues that this transaction, if approved, is unlikely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition (‘AAEC’), as the target firm would invariably exit the market, if the transaction remains unsu ..read more

BY SWIKRUTI MOHANTY AND TUSHAR CHITLANGIA, SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT NLU, ODISHA Introduction The long wait of WhatsApp to enter into the Unified Payment Interface (‘UPI’) enabled digital market in India has finally come to an end. In an order dated 18 August 2020 in Harshita Chawla v WhatsApp, the Competition Commission of India (‘Commission’) has allowed WhatsApp to launch its payment service termed WhatsApp Pay. Additionally, National Payment Corporation of India has also assented to WhatsApp Pay’s data localisation compliance and gave permission for it to go live. WhatsApp Pay is a UPI based ..read more

BY MOHIT KAR, A fourth-year student At mnlu, aurangabad On 20th February, 2020, The Ministry of Corporate Affairs came up with the Draft Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (“the Bill”) on recommendations of the Competition Law Review Committee (“CLRC”). The Bill, amongst other changes, has proposed for addition of Section 4A to widen the scope of protection accorded to Intellectual Property (“IP”) holders in Abuse of Dominance (“AoD”) cases. Section 4A acts as an exception to Section 3 (prohibiting anti-competitive agreements) and Section 4 (cases of AoD) and allows the IP holders the rights t ..read more