Absence Of Economic Regulation In Exclusive Online Buyer-Seller - Whether A Boon Or Bane?

Absence Of Economic Regulation In Exclusive Online Buyer-Seller - Whether A Boon Or Bane To Contemporary Market?

Leelesh Sundaram.B & Asst. Prof. Selva Muthu

ABSTRACT

Under the Indian competitive regime, the online market has started to grow on a rapid basis being primarily influenced by consumer’s socio-economic and temperamental preference. In this being the case, various online market participants have started to invest new ideas to improve their market share and revenue, one such interesting strategy used is the Exclusive Buyer- Seller Agreement which is often addressed as “Membership agreements” wherein the buyers and sellers upon entering into the said agreement for consideration tend to receive exclusive benefits and price discounts for shopping which eventually creates an unnatural demand in the market. By the application of the Competition Act 2002, it is vividly found out that the said legislations as well as the judicial organsexpressly fail to recognize these “Membership agreements” as anticompetitive even though the international competition jurisprudence has compelled the need the said recognition. Even though various researcher have attempted to find out the market goals and competitive strategies concerning the exclusive buyer- seller agreements, there still lies an ambiguity in respect of the impact that is created in the Online Market Competition, thus this study is primarily taken up to find out if the Exclusive Buyer- Seller Agreement create a positive or negative impact in the Online Market Competition and further discuss on the anti-economic and anticompetitive issues such as free riding, sick competition scenario that are likely to arise as a result of this agreements. This study further aims to highlight the need for a Paradigm Swift in Contemporary Competition Jurisprudence concerning online market and give effective recommendations for the same.

Keywords: Online Market Competition, exclusive buyer- seller agreements, Membership agreements, anticompetitive conducts, online market.