The Standing Committee on Finance has summoned top executives of Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, Google, Apple and Microsoft on the subject of ‘anti-competitive practices’ in the digital market.
“We are summoning these firms in the context of the Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2022 which has been referred to our panel. The existing act which was framed in 2002 has no provisions to tackle the huge changes brought about in the digital market,” a member of the Committee said.
The panel has already held deliberations with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. There are many complaints about unfair business practices and the CCI is probing them. The panel has also spoken to the Indian technology firms, food delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy, e-commerce firm Flipkart as also the aggregrators like Ola and Oyo.
The Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2022 was introduced in Lok Sabha on August 5 and was referred to the panel on August 17. The panel has three months to come up with its report. The Bill borrows from the best global practices like settlement and commitment and enhanced leniency provisions in addition to cutting short the maximum time that can be taken for clearing mergers and acquisitions. The new Bill introduces “deal value thresholds” which will require the firms to seek approval of the CCI in case of large value transactions.
