Abuse of Dominant Position: Protector of the Underdogs

There is no dispute to the fact that abuse of dominant position is a danger to the operations in a free market. This is one of the major reasons as to why the effect of abuse of dominant position in the Indian market is necessary to be studied. These sort of practices are unsafe both for Competition and for customers, so that ought not to be permitted to grow. Further, there is also an imperative need to provide various suggestions and remove anomalies so as to keep up and invigorate competition in the relevant market and to advance reasonable challenge among various enterprises. Dominance in law implies that a firm has a high degree of immunity from the normal disciplining forces of rival’s competitive reactions and consumer behavior .on the other hand, dominance as an economic concept is associated with the notion of market power. (Anand Sree, 2018) (Berinde, 2017)The Indian Competition Law, the Competition Act of 2002, like other modern competition laws covers agreements, abuse of dominant position and mergers. Under the Competition Act of India, section 4 deals with Abuse of Dominance or dominant position by an enterprise or a group. The ultimate concern of the competition law is about market power and its abuse. The Law of Competition in India seeks to ensure fair competition by prohibiting trade practices which cause appreciable adverse effect on competition in markets within India. Market power is used to mean the ability of enterprises to raise price above the level that would prevail under the competitive conditions. The Competition law prohibits the use of market controlling position to prevent individual enterprises or a group from driving out competing businesses from the market as well as from dictating prices. The concept of abuse of dominant position of market power refers to anticompetitive business practices in which dominant firm may engage in order to maintain or increase its position in the market. (Malik, 2017).