India emerged as a key overseas market for several tech giants in the past decade as they raced to find the next and perhaps the last great growth location. The South Asian nation wants to influence merger and acquisition deals outside of it's borders.
The Competition Act of 2002 was proposed to be amended to require the permission of the Competition Commission of India for all overseas deals worth more than $252 million.
India, the world's second largest internet market that has attracted investments of tens of billions of dollars, has traditionally scrutinized deals based on asset size and not the transaction value. Over 700 fillings have been approved by Indian regulators in the past ten years.
Things seem to be trying to bring parity between India and China, the U.S. and Europe.
There has been a paradigm shift in the way businesses operate in the last 10 years. The Competition Law Review Committee was constituted by the Government of India in view of economic development, emergence of various business models and the experience gained out of the functioning of the Commission.
Changes have been proposed in the Competition (Amendment) Bill.
(a) changes in certain definitions like “enterprise”, “relevant product market”, “Group”, “Control”, etc., to provide clarity; (b) broadening the scope of anti-competitive agreements and inclusion of a party facilitating an anti-competitive horizontal agreement under such agreements; (c) provisions for reduction of time-limit for approval of combinations from two hundred and ten days to one hundred and fifty days and forming a prima facie opinion by the Commission within twenty days for expeditious approval of combinations; (d) provisions for “value of transaction” as another criteria for notifying combinations to the Commission; (e) limitation period of three years for filing information on anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position before the Commission; (f) appointment of the Director General by the Commission with the prior approval of the Central Government; (g) introduction of Settlement and Commitment framework to reduce litigations; (h) incentivising parties in an ongoing cartel investigation in terms of lesser penalty to disclose information regarding other cartels; (i) substitution of a provision which provides for penalty up to rupees one crore or imprisonment up to three years or both in case of contravention of any order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal with provision for contempt;
(j) issuance of guidelines including on penalties to be imposed by the Commission.
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