India was one of the first developing countries to have a competition law in the form of Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act, 1969 but this law proved to be largely toothless and ineffective. Competition act 2002, a modern competition law was passed and was amended in 2007 and Commission was duly established on March 1, 2009 as an autonomous independent body with a collegium comprising of Chairperson and six members. An appellate body called Competition Appellate Tribunal was also set up in May 2009 with final appeal lying to the Supreme Court of India. In 2009, our earlier law - Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1969 (MRTP Act), was repealed and the MRTP Commission established under the MRTP Act abolished.

The Indian competition law is applicable to all enterprises including state owned enterprises and commercial activities of government-related bodies. Indian Competition law also mandates us to undertake competition advocacy for promoting competition in the economy.

The Commission has extraterritorial jurisdiction with powers to inquire into an anticompetitive agreement or abuse of dominant position taking place outside India, if it has, or is likely to have, an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India. CCI unlike the earlier body MRTP Commission has adequate powers of inquiry and enforcement. The Commission may take remedial actions to deal with anticompetitive agreements, cartels and abuse of dominant position, and impose heavy penalties on the errant enterprises.

During last two years, we have focused on setting up an appropriate organizational structure necessary for effective competition regulation. Our Act provides for a Director General for Investigations and a Secretary to facilitate Commission proceedings for determination and decisions in cases. Both the functionaries are in place. In addition, there are separate Divisions for Anti-trust, Merger and Acquisitions; Law, Economics, Investigations and Capacity Building and International Cooperation.

Competition Commission of India has full support from the Government of India, which was demonstrated recently at the time of issuing recent merger notification and finalizing merger regulations. The Hon’ble Supreme Court’s decision dated 9th Sep, 2010 in CCI v. SAIL is a landmark judgment elucidating jurisprudence in competition law supporting competition regulation.

Till date, the CCI has received close to 200 matters called information under our law alleging violation of Section 3 and 4 relating to anti-competitive agreement and abuse of dominance. The information received has been in diverse sectors such as insurance, travel, automobile manufacturing, real estate, pharmaceuticals, the financial sector, and entertainment. Till date, the Commission has passed final orders in more than 100 cases. In two major cases relating to reality sector and stock exchanges, respectively penalties of around US$ 140 million and 12 million have been imposed for abuse of dominant position in the relevant market. We are also investigating suspected cartels in many vital sectors of the economy.

After an extensive consultation process with various stakeholders, our merger regulations were notified provisions relating to mergers came into effect from June 1, 2011. Since our thresholds are one of the highest in the world, number of merger filings is likely to be relatively less but the filings are likely to be highly complex. We understand that time is the essence of merger transactions. Our Act provides for 210 days for finalizing decision on a merger filing. However, we have a self –imposed limit to clear cases within 180 days on best endeavour basis. As per provisions in our merger regulations, most of the filings are likely to be approved within 30 days and only few filings with serious competition concerns are likely to go beyond this period to the second stage of investigation with automatic clearance at the end of 210 days, if no order is passed.

We are working on a comprehensive international cooperation Strategy. We expect that cooperation with other competition agencies will be a win-win situation for both the partners, and similarly, we are looking forward to enriching and mutually beneficial cooperation with multilateral agencies active in the field of competition regulation.