International Trade - Analysing India’s potential free trade agreements with the UK and the EU – Part 2

In the first part of this series (read here), we analysed the prospects and challenges of a potential free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the UK, as a precursor to which, the governments of India and the UK agreed on an Enhanced Trade Partnership last month. Around the same time, the EU also agreed to restart negotiations on a potential FTA with India. In this second part, let’s discuss the prospects and challenges of a potential FTA between India and the EU.
Continue Reading International Trade: Analysing India’s potential free trade agreements with the UK and the EU – Part 2

Analysing India’s potential free trade agreements with the UK and the EU – Part 1

Last month, the UK and the EU separately announced their intention to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) with India. This is a significant development, not only from an international trade perspective, but also from geo-politics perspective. For India, FTAs with the UK and the EU have the potential of integrating it with the dominant global value chain of trade, and for the UK and the EU, FTAs with India would not only provide them an enhanced access to one of the largest and fastest growing markets as well as manufacturing hubs in the world, ensuring supply chain resilience, but would also enhance their economic and political influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Continue Reading Analysing India’s potential free trade agreements with the UK and the EU – Part 1

CCI issues interim order to relist FabHotels and TreeboIn an interim order dated 9 March 2021[1], the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) has asked MakeMyTrip India Private Limited (“MMT”) and Ibibo Group Private Limited (“Ibibo”) to relist the hotels of Casa2Stays Private Limited (“FabHotels”) and Rubtub Solutions Private Limited (“Treebo”) on their platforms.

The CCI granted interim relief while adjudicating the applications filed by Treebo and FabHotels. The Competition Act, 2002 (as amended) (“Act”) gives power to the CCI to grant temporary injunction restraining any party from carrying on acts which are in contravention of certain provisions of the Act, until the conclusion of such inquiry or until further orders.
Continue Reading CCI issues interim order to relist FabHotels and Treebo

This piece was first published in the October 2017 issue of The Practical Lawyer [(2017) PL (Comp. L) October 104]


Antitrust authorities worldwide have actively investigated and penalised dominant enterprises on various types of anti-competitive conduct. However, historically, very few cases have been pursued on the issue of excessive pricing by dominant entities. It is a popular perception that this seemingly unanimous reluctance by competition authorities to initiate cases in this realm of antitrust laws could be attributable to the perceived difficulties in establishing when pricing is truly excessive. While the allegations of excessive pricing have been often brought up in a multitude of jurisdictions, its successful enforcement has been rare given the challenges in determination of the ambit of ‘excessive’ and against what ‘benchmark’ price should it be compared. This coupled with the paucity of substantial evidence concerning the costs and expenditures incurred in manufacturing/providing the goods/services, and the presence of commercial justifications for charging the excess over and above the costs and a reasonable margin[1] have further contributed to the dormancy of this rather key issue under antitrust laws. We briefly examine here the concept of excessive pricing, reasons it is fraught with difficulties and the old as well as the recent decisions which have the potential to be a game-changer in the domain of ‘excessive pricing’.Continue Reading Excessive Pricing: A Neglected Antitrust Concept?

The nature of regulations, enforcement authorities and their ability to enforce regulations has been known to have a profound effect on innovation.

As the internet transforms industrial processes, regulators across sectors and geographies are trying to achieve the right balance on regulating innovation – enough so that it is under effective control yet not stifled from growing.

In a recent policy brief on behalf of the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative, Kevin Werbach, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, advises policy makers and regulators that the next stage of digital advancement will lead to a phenomenon that he calls “Internet of the World” – an intersection of the on-demand/sharing economy, the Internet of Things and Big Data. He suggests that this stage would represent “the final destruction of artificial divisions between real and virtual”.

As we approach this stage at a rapid pace, law-making and regulation needs to evolve accordingly. Laws need to reflect the rapidly blurring boundaries between the physical and digital so that regulators are suitably equipped to accomplish their tasks across all mediums and sectors.Continue Reading Emerging Trends in Market Power: An Update