 "Digital Competition Law Committee finalising report as last date nears")
The digital Competition Law Committee (DCLC) is in the process of finalising its report on the need for a separate law for competition in digital markets, as the panels's term comes to an end on July 5. Government sources indicated that a third extension of the committee might be underway, if the report is not finalised in the next two days.
The committee was formed in February this year with an original mandate for three months and it has had two extensions of one month each ever since.
The panel led by Manoj Govil, secretary, corporate affairs ministry is expected to present its stance on the need for ex-ante regulations for big tech companies. Stakeholder discussions on the contours of digital competition law were concluded in March.
The discussion around the digital competition law comes amid a global scrutiny of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and others for allegedly abusing their market position using chunks of user data. Earlier this year, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) slapped Google, in two separate cases, with penalties of Rs 936.44 crore and Rs 1,337.76 crore.
The Supreme Court of India had also greenlighted CCI’s probe into WhatsApp’s privacy policy update, related to allegations that it shares user data with its parent company Facebook’s advertising business.
The first meeting of the panel formed for framing the law was held on February 22. The committee includes chairperson, competition commission of India; Saurabh Srivastava, chairman, Indian Angel Network and cofounder of industry body Nasscom.
Legal representatives on the panel include Haigreve Khaitan of Khaitan & Co, Pallavi Shardul Shroff of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co, Anand Pathak, P&A Law Offices, Rahul Rai, Axiom5 Law Chamber.
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A parliamentary panel on finance had suggested the need to have a digital competition law in its report tabled in December 2022.
Domestic startups and news publishers had made presentations sharing their views on the need for a Digital Competition Act on March 4. Representatives of Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Twitter and Netflix had taken part in the stakeholder discussions along with various domestic firms such as Zomato, Oyo, Swiggy, Paytm, Makemytrip and Flipkart.
Several startups and news publishers had raised the issue of their non-inclusion in the committee earlier and said that the panel seemed to be dominated by the corporate lawyers, many of them representing the Big Tech. Following this, many domestic startups and news publishers were invited to share their views with the panel.
Digital competition law aside, the CCI is also building a digital market unit to understand the models of e-commerce platforms and digital economy companies. The idea is to ensure that anti-competitive conduct should not go undetected.