Month: April 2014

Dish TV India Limited v. Hathway Cable & Datacom Limited and Others, Case No. 78 of 2013

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Here’s something which came up sooner than I had expected. A D.T.H. Service Provider filed an information against several M.S.O.’s (Multiple Service Operators) alleging a collective abuse of dominance by them. The issue raised is genuine as we’ve highlighted before here, here and here.

 

To be frank, am disappointed with the Information. The Informant seem to have pressed for “Collective Dominance”, which every Indian competition lawyer worth his salt knows is presently not addressed in the Act and their seems to have been no elaboration on the Relevant Market (Though not sure about this one. Only have access to the Order and not to the copy of the Information itself.) Furthermore, there seems to have been no attempt to build a case under Section 3. Needless to say, the Information was dismissed without a submission to the D.G. for an investigation. At the same time, it is surprising that the C.C.I. chose to dismiss this straightaway, since there already exists a T.R.A.I. Consultation Paper on this issue. In case it was worried about a regulatory conflict, it should have clearly stated so in the Order.

 

Interestingly, D.T.H. Service Providers are also facing scrutiny under the Competition Act. An Information against TATA Sky was dismissed in 2011, but the same as been appealed against and is presently pending before the Competition Appellate Tribunal.

Anonymous v. Bengal Greenfield Housing Dev. Co. Ltd And Others, Case No. 103/2013

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This is one case which has surprisingly been closed by the Commission, with the finding that that no case has been made out of the existence of an Anti-Competitive Agreement or of an Abuse of Dominant Position.  However, in my humble opinion, I am not so sure. While the conclusion of the D.G. in the end may have been that there was no Competition Law violation, it was definitely a case which merited a reference to the D.G. for further investigation.

The Informant in the present case claimed that the absorption of new supply of flats despite prices having gone up from Rs. 1,100/- to 4,800/- per square feet and the sale of Application Forms and allotment through lottery suggesting huge demand gave a clear impression of manipulation and restriction of supply and use of monopolistic and dominant status for monopolistic pricing as the the parcel of land for the township was being developed selectively despite the final allotment of land to the respective builders.

The reason the case is so important is because the Commission seems to have not given enough consideration, though it has been mentioned in the Order of the Commission, is that all the Respondents/Opposite Parties except for DLF Universal Ltd., are in fact joint ventures between the West Bengal Housing Board and various individual private entities. Therefore, all the entities have a common partner which definitely gives an impression of the various Respondents possessing the capability to effectively communicate with each other, or at the very least, coordinating with each other per force the directive of the W.B.H.B. Granted, it is a government body which claims as it’s objective to provide affordable housing to the people of West Bengal. But as we all already know, Government Bodies are not innocent when it comes to violation of Competition Law.

 

In my humble opinion, there exists a prima-facie case to be investigated on the violation of Section 3(3)(a) and Section 3(3)(b) of the Act and to be frank, it is unfortunate that the Commission chose to close the case.

First Ever Extradition On An Antitrust Charge

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In what is being claimed (and probably is)  as the first ever extradition on an Antitrust charge, Romano Pisciotti, an Italian national, was extradited from Germany to the United States  on a charge of participating in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition by rigging bids, fixing prices and allocating market shares for sales of marine hose sold in the United States and elsewhere, the Department of Justice announced today. According to the Department of Justice (D. O. J.) of the U.S.:

 

“This first of its kind extradition on an antitrust charge allows the department to bring an alleged price fixer to the United States to face charges of participating in a worldwide conspiracy,” said Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “This marks a significant step forward in our ongoing efforts to work with our international antitrust colleagues to ensure that those who seek to subvert U.S. law are brought to justice.”

 

A copy of the Official Press Release can be found here. 

 

P.S.: For those who don’t know, Antitrust laws in the U.S.A. provide for both civil and criminal remedies.

Workshop On Competition Law Compliance

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The C.I.R.C. is organising a Workshop on Competition Law Compliance on the 18th and 19th of April, 2014 at Hotel Metropolitan, Bangla Sahib Road, New Delhi.

 

For further details and registration, click here.