COMPETITION (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2023: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK?

Published On: 14/02/2023

Practice Area: Competition Law

Authors:

The Central Government introduced the Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2023 (“2023 Bill”) in the Lok Sabha (i.e., lower house of the Parliament) in the first part of the budget session and proposed additional amendments to the Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2022 (“2022 Bill”). In a welcome move, the 2023 Bill has ironed out the industry concerns regarding the 2022 Bill such as clarifying that only target enterprise will be considered for the local nexus test under ‘deal value’ threshold. However, the 2023 Bill has also proposed sweeping changes, such as introducing provisions regarding computation of penalty on global turnover and mens rea in cartel cases, which has taken the legal fraternity as well as the business community by surprise. Given that the first part of the budget session ended yesterday, and the Parliament will reconvene on March 13, 2023, it is hoped that the recess will allow the Parliament an opportunity to understand the feedback and concerns of the stakeholders before incorporating the additional amendments into a law. INDUSLAW's Avimukt Dar, Unnati Agrawal, Yash Lahoty, Swapnil Singh and Hrishav Kumar analyse the key proposed amendments and provide their insights on the Bill.