Evaluating A Buyers’ Cartel Under Indian Competition Policy

Namita Prabhukolwalkar, LLM (Business and Corporate Laws), Symbiosis Law School, Pune

ABSTRACT

In this globalized world, competition concerns have multiplied leading to novel anti-competitive scenarios. One such emerging concern in the Indian market is a ‘buyers’ cartel’. This article explains a buyers’ cartel in the Indian competition spectrum by distinguishing it from a sellers’ cartel. It analyses the competition cases between a period of 2002 to 2020 on the topic to argue elevating buyers’ cartel to a ‘proof of reason’ rather than prohibition ‘per se’. In doing so, it adopts a doctrinal approach to briefly discuss and compare the competition policies of developed jurisdictions such as USA and Canada with India and their treatment of a buyers’ cartel. As this article discusses a buyers’ cartel while India is on a verge of amending competition policy; it becomes beneficial to policy framers and academicians in critically reviewing the same before embarking on the path ahead.

Keywords: Buyers’ Cartel, Cartel, Comparative Law, Competition Law, India.