Regulation Of Anti Competitive Agreements In India
The DG De la DG (CCI) is increasingly investigating dawn raids to investigate allegations of anti-competitive practices. Since the creation of the ICC, India has experienced only 6 (six) dawn descents (known to the public). Three such cases have occurred in the past 12 (12) months. The sudden increase in dawn raids by the ICC staff is due to the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the Competition Commission of India against JCB India Ltd.8, in which it considered that documents seized by the DG during a search could be used as evidence during the investigation. According to publicly available data, DG Razzien has conducted transactions with JCB Limited, Eveready Industries Limited and three breweries: United Breweries; Carlsberg; and Anheuser-Busch InBev. DG also raided Glencore at dawn for alleged casing price agreements, French company Mersen on alleged pricing agreements with Indian Railways and Climax Synthetics Private Ltd, Shivalik Agro Poly Products Ltd, A Manufacturing Services Private Ltd and Bag Poly International Ltd for allegations of offers to buy tarpaulins by food corporation of India. For 40 years, India had its own version of competition law, enacted by a 1969 Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act. This legislation, based on the principles of a „command and control economy”, aimed to establish in the country a regulatory system that did not allow a concentration of economic power in a few hands that harmed the public interest and thus prohibited any monopolistic and restrictive commercial practice. After the economic liberalization of 1991, it became imperative to establish a system of competition law that better responds to the economic realities of the nation and is consistent with international practices. That is why, in 2002, the Indian Parliament adopted a global competition law – the Competition Act 2002 – to regulate business practices in India, in order to prevent practices from having a significant negative impact on competition in India. The main purpose of the Competition Act is to regulate three types of practices: anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominance and combinations (mergers, acquisitions and mergers). The Competition Act, amended by the Competition Act (Amendment) 2007, came into force on May 20, 2009, when the Indian government notified the provisions relating to anti-competitive agreements and the abuse of dominance of the Competition Act. It took another three years for the merger control provisions to come into force in June 2011.