Merger Under The Regime of Competition Law: A Comparative Study of Indian Legal Framework With EC and UK

Abstract

We are living in a free market economy age where business entities are engaged in competitive practices. This sometimes (if not always) leads to the monopolisation of the market by way of anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominance, mergers and takeovers between business entities which result in distortion of the market. Most countries in the world have enacted competition laws to protect their free market economies and have thereby developed an economic system in which the allocation of resources is determined solely by demand and supply. In the case of India, the earlier Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 was not only found to be inadequate but also obsolete in certain respects, particularly, in the light of such international economic developments relating to competition law. To overcome such difficulty Indian Government has enacted the Competition Act in 2002. This enactment is seen as India’s response to the opening up of its economy, removing controls and resorting to liberalization. The Act sought to ensure fair competition in India by prohibiting trade practices which cause appreciable adverse effect on the competition in market within India. The present Indian Act is quite contemporary to the laws presently in force in the European Community as well as in the United Kingdom. In other words, the laws dealing with competition in these jurisdictions have somewhat similar legislative intent and scheme of enforcement. However, these laws are not quite in parimateria with the Indian legislation. This paper is an effort to provide a comparative picture of Indian, EC and UK competition regime on merger.