CCI opts out as competition agencies get ranked globally

Subject : Economy

Section: Msc

Context: CCI opts out of Rating Enforcement Survey; Remained “unranked” along with Competition Agencies of Canada, China, US DoJ& FTC

Key Points:

Competition Commission of India (CCI), has been ranked 2.8 (out of 5) on Market Perception Rating in the results of 23rd edition of Rating Enforcement of Global Competition Review (GCR)
GCR is a global publisher of news, analysis, and events related to the competition law and policy industry.

Rankings:

European Union’s Directorate-General for Competition and Germany’s Federal Cartel Office were top ranked as “elite” with 5 star ratings.
Australia’s Competition & Consumer Commission, France’s Competition Authority, South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission, and United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority were ranked as “very good” with 4.5-star ratings.

Other unranked countries:

The other jurisdictions and Agencies which remained “Unranked” are: Canada’s Competition Bureau, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, US Department of Justice and US Federal Trade Commission.
CCI was lauded for its action in 2022, when it took three of its biggest enforcement decisions ever in the span of one week in October 2022:
- The watchdog ordered Google to pay a combined 22.8 billion Indian rupees (€247.million) in fines for abusing its dominance over the Android operating system and its payment processing services. I
- t also sanctioned MakeMyTrip and hotel company Oravel Stays in one of its first orders targeting multi-sided platforms.
- The authority also advanced other behavioural probes into Apple and Google’s news publishing”, added a release issued by GCR.

Challenges for CCI:

After the last chairperson of CCI stepped down after four years as chair, the agency was left without the required number of commissioners to issue decisions.
In the absence of a quorum CCI could not clear M&A cases. Later it had to invoke the ‘doctrine of necessity’ to continue examining and clearing combination (M&A) cases, despite a lack of quorum
It was only in 2023 that the government appointed Ravneet Kaur as CCI chairperson , choking the CCI’s conduct work in the meantime.

Recent initiatives:

Government approved sweeping amendments to the country’s competition law, which will allow the CCI to impose fines based on global turnover.
To complement the CCI’s enforcement efforts, the government has also set up a stand-alone expert committee to draft a Digital Competition Act.