CUTS Institute for Regulation & Competition

“As the enforcement of the Indian Competition Act has begun in full swing, voluntary corporate compliance and capacity building of the stakeholders are critical steps to build and develop a better competition culture in India,” said Salman Khurshid, the Indian Minister for Corporate Affairs. He was speaking at a recently concluded International Conference on the Interface between Competition Policy & Law and Business Strategy organised by the CUTS Institute for Regulation & Competition (CIRC) in association with CUTS International and NERA Economic Consulting as knowledge partners. On this occasion he released a Toolkit on the Competition Law in India, which was prepared and published by CUTS International and CIRC. More than 50 participants from among the competition authority, legal community, corporate houses and academia attended the event.

While delivering a Special Address, Dhanendra Kumar, Chairman, Competition Commission of India said that the Commission has started investigations into the initial cases. He further said that there is a huge deficit in terms of skills not only at the Commission but also in companies which need to remain compliant to the competition law. In order to overcome such constraints, he suggested that in addition to organising focused and targeted programmes, competition law should be integrated into various academic streams.

Mukesh Kacker, Director General of CIRC announced the launch of a part-time certificate course on “competition law and business strategy” which CIRC has conceived to cater to the needs of practicing lawyers, economists and business executives. The need for formulating and implementing a national competition policy was discussed at length by Pradeep Mehta, Secretary General of CUTS International. Such a policy is needed to address the competition issues across sectors and also those relating to states.

Intense discussion on substantive issues such as abuse of dominance, anti-competitive agreements, cartels took place in this two-day event held in Delhi. Sharing his experience from Mexico, Eduardo Perez Motta, Chairman of the Mexican competition authority explained why there is less competition in non-tradable sectors and how it affects the people at large. Allan Fels, Former Chairman of the Australian competition authority discussed his experience with dealing with anti-competitive practices in professional services particularly medical services.

Stressing the timeliness in decision making, noted economist S. L. Rao said that all regulators need to be sensitive about time they take in doing their jobs. On the issues of regulatory domain of a sectoral regulator, the recent case of whether or not Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board can accept a complaint on a competition matter L. Mansingh, Chairperson, PNGRB said that it is possible and should be done in consultation with the Competition Commission. He stressed on the need for injecting competition across distribution channels of petroleum and natural gas products.

Speaking on European experiences of using economics for competition law decision making, Yannis Katsoulacos of Athens University said that European Commission has shed its initial hesitation and has started using modern modelling tools in investigations. He specifically pointed out that while dominance is a legal concept market power is an economic concept. David Mathew, an expert from NERA Economic Consulting highlighted how wrong use of criteria in determining relevant markets can lead to flawed outcomes of an investigation.

Shubhashis Gangopadhyay discussed two European cases to indicate that these days use of sophisticated and indirect manners is prevalent in cartels. Such a trend poses serious challenges before the Indian competition authority to detect and investigate such collusive behaviour. On the issue of interface between competition authority and sectoral regulators, he said that it should not be viewed as adversarial. Noted economist T. C. A. Anant dealt on the use of ex-ante and ex-post analysis in competition law and sectoral regulation. In the context of developing countries and their fast changing economic realities, he said that past can not be a guide to the future. Nitin Desai, former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, in his closing remarks, said that the time has come to combine economics and law while making policies; however, in doing that India is to travel a long road. He underlined that CIRC is envisioned to fill this gap.

For further details, please contact:
Navneet Sharma, +91 92127 23123, ns@circ.in

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