Rishabh Chopra

KEY POINTS CCI is empowered to initiate an investigation into any conduct which may contravene the provisions of the Act if the CCI knows that such conduct is about to be committed. The CCI is obligated to prevent practices from having an adverse effect on competition. BRIEF FACTS CCI (...)

KEY POINTS A no presumption of appreciable adverse effect on competition (“AAEC”) cannot arise without first establishing the existence of an agreement in terms of the provisions Act. BRIEF FACTS An information was filed before CCI by the Gujarat Paper Mills Associations (“GPMA / Informant”), (...)

KEY POINTS (i) Although CCI and the DG have the powers to investigate the representatives of the tenderer/procurer to understand and ascertain the tender design, tendering mechanism including the eligibility of the bidders in terms of tender conditions by requisitioning the relevant records. (...)

KEY POINTS (i) In deciding applications for interim relief under Section 33 of the Act, CCI must form a higher degree of satisfaction than the prima facie requirements under Section 26(1) of the Act. (ii) Denial of market access need not be complete or absolute in nature to result in an (...)

KEY POINTS The practice of restricting the maximum discount and issuing advisories for members to not participate in certain procurement advertisements amounts to anti-competitive conduct, especially if coercive action is taken by the governing body to ensure adherence by its members. BRIEF (...)

KEY POINTS Mere price parallelism does not amount to cartelization, if: (i) the market prices have fluctuated, at times with significant margins, (ii) new players are easily able to establish themselves; (iii) all players offer more or less similar kinds of services, and (iv) the prices depend (...)

KEY POINTS (i) The mere fact that participants to a tender have common directors/shareholders is not sufficient evidence to return a finding that the parties are engaging in bid-rigging. (ii) Commercial transactions between related parties, such as sale/purchase of goods and loan exchanges, (...)

KEY POINTS An inquiry into whether certain practices by a firm amount to abuse is not required to be undertaken when the concerned firm does not hold a dominant position in the relevant market by virtue of there being other prominent firms within the relevant market that provide the same (...)

KEY POINTS Merely adding more functionality to an internet-based app in the name of product improvement and enhancing benefit to consumers would not amount to leveraging dominance if the users are not compelled to utilize the new features to the exclusion of all other services offering similar (...)

KEY POINTS Existence of large number of players in the home loan market shows that ICICI Bank (“ICICI”) cannot operate independently in the market and, hence cannot be considered to be in a position of dominance in the relevant market. In the absence of any evidence indicating an agreement or (...)

KEY POINTS The markets for insurance and reinsurance exist as separate markets and insurance companies have the commercial freedom to price their policies as they deem fit according to the market conditions and decisions taken in the reinsurance market do not place any restriction on insurance (...)

KEY POINTS An entity falls within the definition of the term ‘enterprise’ only if it is engaged in any economic and commercial activity specified within Section 2 (h) of the Act. BRIEF FACTS An information was filed before CCI alleging contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act by (...)

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (“ABFRL / Target”) is a public limited company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. ABFRL is engaged in the business of manufacturing and retailing branded apparels, footwear and accessories, through its retail stores, multi-brand outlets, departmental (...)

Manipal Health Enterprises Private Ltd. (“MHEPL / Acquirer”) is part of the Manipal Educational and Medical Group which operates a network of hospitals providing multi-speciality care. Manipal Group has 15 hospitals spread across 7 cities in India under the brand name ‘Manipal Hospitals’. Outside (...)

Greenko Energy Holdings (“GEH / Party No. 1”) is a company limited by shares incorporated in Mauritius, engaged principally in the business activity of investment holding. It is the holding company of the Greenko Group of Companies (“Greenko”). GEH has an Indian subsidiary which is primarily (...)

KEY POINTS Even in cases where an information is filed anonymously before the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”), it is within the powers of the Director General (“DG”) to cross-examine the informant; Googles’ market position in the android app market provides it with a significant market (...)

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court on October 26, 2020 rejected the CCI’s challenge to the Karnataka HC’s stay on the investigations directed by the CCI against Amazon and Flipkart. In January, 2020, the CCI has ordered investigation into allegation of, inter alia, exclusive arrangements, (...)

Looking into the alleged violation of Competition Act based on four alleged practices, namely, exclusive launch of mobile phones, preferred sellers on the marketplaces, deep discounting and preferential listing/promotion of private labels, being followed by two major e-commerce platforms, the (...)

KEY POINTS Anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance issues against e-commerce platforms ought to be analyzed individually in respect of each product on a case-by-case basis. In the absence of dominance, issues of sale of counterfeit products on an e-commerce platform do not raise (...)

KEY POINTS An alleged illegal termination of a dealership agreement by a manufacturer who does not command a dominant position does not attract the abuse of dominant position provisions of the Competition Act. BRIEF FACTS Vijay Chaudhary (“Dealer”) was an authorised dealer of India Yamaha (...)

KEY POINTS Within the real estate sector, different categories of residential properties are not necessarily substitutable and therefore form separate relevant markets. Further, certain industrial practices though not within the realm of the CCI may require regulatory intervention. BRIEF (...)

KEY POINTS A government-owned corporation is an enterprise within the meaning of the Competition Act if it engaged in economic activity and can be investigated for violation of provisions of the Competition Act. BRIEF FACTS Dhiraj Gupta, a sole proprietor secured the license for parking (...)

KEY POINTS In the absence of any material on record which can suggest collusion, no case of anti-competitive agreement can be made out. In addition, for a case of abuse of dominance, one must take into consideration the market structure and the number of major players including, global players (...)

Key Points The mere fact that a case has been filed by an aggrieved party under the Act, does not take away its character of being a case in rem involving a larger question of fair and competitive markets. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the informant need not necessarily be an (...)

KEY POINTS While the CCI found sufficient evidence to hold that there existed a contravention of Section 3(3) of the Act, given the economic downturn due to the pandemic faced by Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (“MSMEs”) in India, and other public interest considerations, the CCI imposed no (...)

KEY POINTS Swiggy does not select or modify the rates charged by its partner restaurants and therefore, any discrepancy in the rates is solely attributable to the partner restaurants. BRIEF FACTS An Information was filed under Section 19(1)(a) of the Act, alleging that the popular app-based (...)