The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is gearing up to study competition issues in fast-evolving sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce, fintech and tech platforms as the antitrust regulator seeks to empanel a network of research bodies, universities, and NGOs to conduct market studies on its behalf.
In a request for expression of interest (REoI) floated on Monday, the CCI invited institutions and agencies to join a panel that would undertake studies to help it understand the emerging issues or technological developments having implications for markets and competition.
The move comes at a time when competition regulators globally, especially in matured jurisdictions like European Union and United States, are using market studies as a tool to identify competition concerns.
As per REoI, empanelled agencies will be tasked with analysing markets and ecosystems, including stakeholders, value chains, market structures and “associated opportunities, risks and ramifications from a competition standpoint”.
They will also study competition trends, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), agreements at different levels of production and supply chain, competition law related issues, and emerging and potential competition issues in the markets.
CCI said that preference will be given to the institutions and agencies having experience in economics of competition law and consideration will be given to start-ups during the evaluation process, signalling an expansion of the regulator’s engagement beyond the traditional academic institutions and consulting firms.
The empanelment will remain valid for three years with an extension of three more years subject to certain conditions. CCI also clarified that being on the panel doesn’t guarantee work assignments, and specific projects will continue to be awarded through competitive bidding processes.
Experts said that the goal of the regulator seems to be building an ecosystem of external experts that can help it understand risks much in advance rather than reacting to the complaints only after anti-competitive conduct or market distortions have occurred.
In the recent year, the CCI has commissioned market studies on sectors like telecom, pharma, e-commerce and AI. Some of these studies have acted as a precursor to regulatory scrutiny and enforcement action by the commission.
