Invitation to Fill C.O.M.P.A.T. Vacancy

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has released an Internal Communication within certain departments, calling for Applications for the post of “Member”, Competition Appellate Tribunal. I found a copy of it which was circulated in Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue, Central Board of Excise and Customs calling all Chief Commissioners and Director General’s interested to apply.

Actually, it was released on 12th June and the copy which is on the link was circulated within the Department on 26th June, so am presuming the appointment process must be almost over by now. About time. There is a tonne of work waiting for the Tribunal when it starts sitting again.

P.S.: In related news, Mr. U. C. Nahta has been appointed as a Member of the C.C.I. He belongs to the Indian Corporate Law Service and was formerly the Director (Inspection & Investigation) in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. He will serve a full term of five years.

Cabinet Approves Amendments To the Competition Act, 2002

As per a press release by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs,

“The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to further amend the Competition Act, 2002, with a view to fine tune it and to meet the present day needs in the field of competition, in the light of the experiences gained in the actual working of the Competition Commission of India in the last few years.”

Unfortunately, we could not find a draft of the Amendment Bill on the Ministry’s website. Will write a detailed piece on the same as soon as it is made public. In the meantime, if anybody finds the draft, please post the link to the same in the comments below.

Press Statement by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs

The ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, released a press statement yesterday stating that “the Competition Commission of India has started facilitating competition assessment of rules, regulations and government policies, contents of which may inadvertently impact the competitive atmosphere adversely.” It also stated that the process was for “evaluating government policies, regulations, rules and laws for identification of those which unnecessarily impede competition and suggest measures to redesign the identified ones so that competition is not unduly inhibited.”

The task has been assigned to the CCI with the intention to begin implementation of the National Competition Policy (Apologies. Unfortunately, the latest draft seems to have disappeared off the internet. Will update this post as soon as it is found.)

The press statement can be found here