Competition Quarterly Milestones (July-September 2025)

On 25 July 2025, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) published its order dated 22 April 2025, clearing the acquisition of AAM India Manufacturing Corporation Private Limited (AAMCPL) by Bharat Forge Limited (BFL).¹ This marks CCI’s first Phase II merger review in six years. AAMCPL is engaged in the manufacture and sale of axles for commercial vehicles in India. BFL is primarily engaged in the manufacture and sale of metal forging products, including vehicle components such as forged axle sub-components. Certain promoters of BFL held a controlling stake in two joint ventures (JV), which were also engaged in the manufacture and sale of axles for commercial vehicles, off-highway vehicles, and defence vehicles in India.

This order highlights the CCI’s capacity to conduct in-depth merger assessments and its willingness to accept complex behavioural remedies to mitigate competition concerns in highly concentrated markets.

In March 2024, the Digital Competition Bill, 2024 (Bill), which proposes an ex-ante framework for regulating digital markets in India, was released for public consultation. On 11 August 2025, the Standing Committee on Finance (Committee) presented its report on the Bill before the lower house of India’s Parliament (Lok Sabha) (Report), recommending certain revisions to the Bill, along with a phased and evidence-led rollout of ex-ante rules for digital markets.² While endorsing the shift from the current ex-post framework to a proactive regime, the Committee highlighted the need to balance innovation and optimal regulation.

Key recommendations of the Report include:

Figure 3: Key recommendations of the Report

The Report signals strong parliamentary support for ex-ante regulation of the digital markets in India, while emphasising procedural safeguards, institutional readiness, and proportionality in the design of the upcoming regime.

In July 2023, a division bench of the Delhi High Court held that the exercise of patent rights by a patentee is governed by the provisions of the Patents Act, 1970 (Patents Act), and not the Competition Act, 2002, as amended (Act). It observed that the CCI does not have jurisdiction over such matters.³ The CCI appealed this decision before the Supreme Court, and on 2 September 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the Delhi High Court’s decision.

The Supreme Court ruling has two key impacts. First, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, the Supreme Court decided to curtail the CCI’s jurisdiction in matters concerning standard essential patents. However, while doing so, the Supreme Court kept all questions of law open, indicating that the question of CCI’s jurisdiction in such patent disputes does not stand conclusively decided. Second, the ruling recognised that since the parties to the dispute had reached a private settlement, the matter did not merit further judicial interference by the Supreme Court.

While the Supreme Court’s decision was confined to the specific facts of the case, it leaves open the broader policy question of how competition and patent law should interact – an issue likely to resurface in future disputes involving standard-essential patents.

The Supreme Court addressed whether, for proposed penalties, a second, separate show-cause notice needs to be served on parties who have already been given the chance to file replies and/or objections before the CCI. The matter stemmed from a CCI order finding Kerala Film Exhibitors Federation (KFEF) and its office-bearers liable for boycotting distributors who supplied to a non-member theatre. The penalties imposed on the office-bearers were later set aside by the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT). The key reason for COMPAT’s decision was that no specific penalty notice was served, which amounted to a violation of the principles of natural justice.

The Supreme Court overturned COMPAT’s decision, holding that the Act does not mandate a second notice for penalties. It clarified that forwarding the investigation report, which identifies the individuals’ roles, and providing them an opportunity to respond to the alleged contraventions, constituted sufficient notice. The reasoning was that the opportunity given is to contest the finding of contravention, not the specifics of the proposed penalty. The Supreme Court emphasised that requiring a separate notice for proposed penalties would only delay proceedings. It was up to the CCI to decide the manner of issuing penalties, provided it maintained proportionality. The Supreme Court held that appellate bodies like COMPAT or National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) were empowered to adjust penalties themselves, without needing to remand the matter to the CCI.

The Supreme Court also clarified that if a behavioural remedy affects corporate governance, it can be applied to individuals as well as the enterprise. Two office-bearers of KFEF had been suspended from KFEF for two years by the CCI. COMPAT had set aside the behavioural remedy, but the Supreme Court upheld it since there was clear evidence of their involvement.

Consequently, the Supreme Court restored the CCI’s original order in its entirety, including monetary penalties and the two-year ban on the office-bearers from associating with KFEF.

On 1 August 2025, the CCI passed two separate orders in response to a complaint filed by the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) against Google. The CCI segregated ADIF’s complaints into three distinct sub-cases and opined on each case separately (with the order on the third sub-case not yet published).

Figure 4: Segregation of ADIF’s complaint basis the nature of allegations

The CCI’s order in the first two sub-cases are briefly discussed below:

Subsequently, the Bombay High Court, in another case, further clarified the scope of Section 26(2A).⁸ In this case, Asian Paints had approached the Bombay High Court against the CCI’s direction to investigate its alleged abuse of dominance practices, such as imposing unfair conditions on dealers, foreclosing access to essential inputs and supply chains, and using arbitrary incentives to enforce exclusivity.⁹ Asian Paints argued that the probe was barred under Section 26(2A) of the Act, since substantially the same facts and issues had already been decided by the CCI in a 2022 order.¹⁰ The Bombay High Court dismissed the plea and held that Section 26 (2A) of the Act is an enabling provision intended to avoid duplication, but it does not create a jurisdictional bar on the CCI. The Bombay High Court also emphasised that the 2022 order was distinct from the current investigation, which involves fresh facts and evidence.

Together, these two orders mark the emerging framework for applying Section 26(2A), balancing procedural efficiency with the CCI’s discretionary powers in invoking Section 26(2A) of the Act.

The CCI has ordered a detailed investigation under Section 26(1) of the Act into the conduct of PVR INOX, over the continued imposition of the Virtual Print Fee (VPF) on producers, a charge introduced to subsidise the industry’s shift from analogue to digital projectors.¹¹ The order follows a complaint filed by the Film and Television Producers’ Guild of India (FTPGI), which alleged that PVR INOX is abusing its dominant position in the market for exhibition of films in multiplex theatres in India.

While the case levelled allegations against digital cinema equipment providers UFO Moviez and Qube Cinema too, they were closed as repetitive (due to an earlier order against them on similar issues) under Section 26(2A) of the Act. The CCI, however, found the allegations against PVR INOX to be distinct and warranting further scrutiny. Noting its 30–43% share of screens and significantly higher share of box office revenue, the CCI held PVR INOX to be prima facie dominant in the relevant market. The complaint raises multiple abuse concerns, including:

Observing that these allegations point to potential abuse of dominance, the CCI directed an investigation into the conduct of PVR INOX. The order highlights the CCI’s willingness to scrutinise evolving market practices and intervene where legacy charges like the VPF may be leveraged by dominant enterprises.

On 6 August 2025, the CCI ordered an investigation into Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd. (RCFL)’s alleged abuse of dominant position by tying the sale of urea (a subsidised agricultural product with a fixed maximum sale price) with the sale of non-subsidised agricultural products such as fertilisers.¹² On a preliminary basis, the CCI found RCFL, a government-owned Navratna company, to be dominant in the market for sale and supply of urea in Maharashtra. The alleged abuses pertained to tie-in arrangements, imposing unfair conditions, imposing supplementary obligations, and leveraging its dominance to protect the market for other agricultural products. The CCI found these potentially violated Sections 3(4) and 4 of the Act. Evidence before the CCI included government notices, complaints from dealers, and audio-visual recordings that highlighted RCFL’s practices. The CCI specifically noted that it had “perused the letters/communications issued by the government and by various associations of dealers,” and on that basis observed that the practice of tying other products with Urea and Diammonium Phosphate appeared to be widespread.

In a significant decision, the NCLAT has clarified that the ‘relevant turnover’ principle for penalty calculation, established by the Supreme Court in Excel Crop Care,¹³ must be applied on a case-by-case basis, to avoid absurd outcomes such as nil penalty computation. This principle limits penalty computation to the turnover attributable to the product or service affected by the infringement rather than the total turnover of an enterprise.

The case before the NCLAT involved Austere Systems Private Limited (Austere) and its related entities, Fimo Infosolutions Private Limited (Fimo) and M/s Toyfort (Toyfort). The CCI had found that these companies engaged in bid-rigging and geographic market allocation in soil testing tenders issued by the Uttar Pradesh Agriculture Department during 2017-18. The CCI had observed that Fimo and Toyfort, despite lacking soil testing expertise, submitted cover bids to create a façade of competition and help Austere secure contracts, while Austere and another entity engaged in geographic market allocation by refraining from bidding competitively in each other’s pre-allocated regions. The CCI had also calculated a penalty for bid-rigging based on the total turnover of these companies.

The NCLAT upheld the CCI’s decision on liability as well as penalty. It rejected the appellants’ primary defence that Austere, Fimo and Toyfort, being related parties, constituted a ‘single economic entity’. It clarified that independent business entities with separate legal personalities, even if related through commercial contracts, cannot claim the benefit of the ‘single economic entity’ doctrine. The rationale is that this doctrine applies only when entities operate as one integrated enterprise with unified control and decision-making, such that they cannot collude with themselves. On penalty, the appellants relied on Excel Crop Care, arguing for computation based on relevant turnover instead of total turnover. However, the NCLAT noted that since the infringing entities were first-time bidders with nil turnover from the soil testing business, applying the relevant turnover principle would result in a nil penalty, which would defeat the deterrent objective of the Act.

In a separate appeal decided in September 2025 concerning the same set of Uttar Pradesh soil testing tenders, the NCLAT took a slightly different approach: while upholding the finding of cartelisation, it reduced the penalty from 5% to 3% of average turnover, recognising the appellants’ role as supporting cover bidders.¹⁴ Taken together, these decisions highlight that while NCLAT will not allow the Excel Crop Care principle to be misused to escape liability, it will attempt to calibrate penalties based on the principles of natural justice, ensuring that the penalties are proportionate to the role played by each bidder in the cartel.