The Delhi High Court upholds the Competition Authority’s order directing an investigation into the privacy policy rolled out by a Big Tech company (WhatsApp)

KEY POINTS Mere pendency of some issues before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India (“Supreme Court”), or any of the High Courts does not necessarily bar CCI from exercising jurisdiction otherwise vested with it under the Act. BRIEF FACTS Whatsapp LLC (“WhatsApp”) is the proprietor of the popular Over-the-top (“OTT”) smartphone messaging application (“App”) ‘WhatsApp Messenger’; which is used for sending and receiving variety of media texts, photos and videos, calls etc. through the internet. In 2014, WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook Inc. (“Facebook”) which owns and operates the popular social media platform ‘Facebook’ (Whatsapp and Facebook are collectively termed