The Competition Act, 2002 was formulated with the intent to address the problem in the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 and to prevent inequity, while sustaining the competition, in the Indian market and ensure free and ethical trade carried on by the participants in the market. In keeping with this intent, not only is the Competition Commission of India (CCI) vested with powers to monitor anti-competitive behavior taking place within the country but under Section 32 of the Act also empowered to take under consideration of an act taking place beyond India but having an adverse effect on competition in India. The Act by allowing CCI to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction has made it possible for CCI to take action against anticompetitive conduct involving imports, and foreign cartels which may adversely affect the Indian market. While CCI has been given such powers it is yet to be seen how it balances its domestic responsibilities along with keeping track of international developments keeping in mind the infrastructure available to it. This paper attempts to analyze the grant of power to the CCI under Section 32 and its effect.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting, and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.