Leniency Regime in India: Recent Developments

The Competition Act of 2002 was passed to foster positive competition and eliminate practices that are harmful to consumers' ability to make informed purchasing decisions in the market. The Authorities charged with regulating competition across the world have always regarded cartels as a grievous sort of anti-trust violation. The elimination of cartels has been the most important objective of the majority of the world’s jurisdictions, thus the Competition Commission of India {hereinafter “CCI” or “Commission”} has not been an exemption for this pattern. As time has passed, the work of finding and punishing cartels has grown more difficult for those who oversee fair trade. As a result, to assist with the enforcement of laws, numerous nations, including India, have embraced leniency systems to empower organizations associated with cartels to reveal data about any current cartels in return for complete or frictional resistance from prosecution. In 2017, several amendments were likewise done to the Lesser Penalty Regulations, that altogether extended the extent of powers presented to the CCI concerning leniency programs in the nation. This article particularly deals with the recent developments concerning the leniency regime in India and its legal framework.