The Competition Commission of India (CCI) was established under the Competition Act, 2002 for the administration, implementation and enforcement of the Act, and was duly constituted in March 2009.
The Competition Act
- The Competition Act, 2002, as amended by the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2007, follows the philosophy of modern competition laws.
- The Act prohibits anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominant position by enterprises and regulates combinations (acquisition, acquiring of control and M&A), which causes or likely to cause an appreciable adverse effect on competition within India.
- The objectives of the Act are sought to be achieved through the CCI, which consists of a chairperson and 6 members appointed by the Central Government.
- The Commission is also required to give opinion on competition issues on a reference received from a statutory authority established under any law and to undertake competition advocacy, create public awareness and impart training on competition issues.
Objectives of the Commission
- To prevent practices having adverse effects on competition.
- To promote and sustain competition in markets.
- To protect the interests of consumers.
- To ensure freedom of trade.
- Proactive engagement with all stakeholders, including consumers, industry, government and international jurisdictions.
- Being a knowledge intensive organization with a high competence level.
Over the years, CCI has finely played both administrative and quasi-judicial roles to eliminate practices having adverse effects on competition. During the course of gaining stability, CCI has faced many challenges:
- implementation of competition law
- transition in antitrust issues of the current era
- changing business practices to examination of issues involving the digital economy and e-commerce.
It has now become a necessity for CCI to move away from strategies used to examine a conventional business and include parameters of data accessibility, network effects and multi-sided markets for getting a better grip on new age areas like digital economy and e-commerce industry.