‘21st century regulator can’t use 19th century tools’

Competition Commission should move with times rather than being seen as a watchdog implementing a 21st century legislation with the 19th century tools, Chairman Ashok Chawla said.

Marking an eventful year of enforcement, the fair trade regulator has slapped penalties worth over Rs 1,500 crore on violators in 2015 -- the latest being a penalty of Rs 258 crore on leading air carriers on charges of cartelisation. App-based cab operators and e-commerce players too came under the scanner of CCI this year as it ordered probes for alleged anti-competitive practices against Ola and Snapdeal.

Emphasising that CCI has worked quite hard to streamline its systems and processes, Chawla said the endeavour is to deliver better, especially with respect to mergers and acquisitions that comes before it. 

Chawla, who is to retire early next month after steering the regulatory body for nearly five years, emphasised that it understands the benefits that consolidation can bring into the economic landscape. “We should be seen as a regulator moving with the times and not one which is implementing a 21st century legislation with 20th or 19th century tools. That is the conscious endeavour,” Chawla said.

The remarks come against the backdrop of Competition Commission of India (CCI) being perceived in some quarters as a kind of hurdle to ease of doing business.

One of the youngest regulators in the country’s economic architecture, CCI is wielding a ‘carrot and stick’ approach by cracking the whip on errant entities and making efforts to ensure that its framework is business friendly.

Of late, the Commission, which began implementing the Competition Act in 2009, has been utilising technology “quite a bit” with the latest being the introduction of electronic filing platform, Chawla said.

The Commission would soon come out with additional changes to filing requirements for entities seeking approval for M&A deals. Noting that the regulator has reviewed these norms to make them more user-friendly, Chawla said, “We try to do it with a light touch because we value the benefits that consolidation and economies of scale can give to the economic landscape”.

“At the same time, we have to be watchful of the fact that the enterprises should not become unduly big and cause stress to the other players in the market. 

“With that subtle balance, we continue to examine the cases,” the CCI chief said.