BRICS competition regulators to discuss leniency, digital markets

New Delhi: Competition regulators from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) will review their experience in implementing leniency provisions and competition related trends in digital markets at a three-day meeting in the Indian capital starting Wednesday, Competition Commission of India (CCI) chairperson Ravneet Kaur told reporters on Tuesday.

The primary goal is to foster cooperation and share experiences and learnings, Kaur told reporters.

Regulators and policy makers will also examine issues such as competition in digital economy, big tech, and algorithms and challenges in merger control.

The discussions will focus on best practices to be adopted by individual nations including India.

Towards the conclusion of the conference, the heads of the BRICS competition authorities will meet for a joint declaration highlighting the common vision and collaborative spirit, the chairperson said.

Kaur said that two joint reports on leniency programmes and on digital markets will be released at the event. These will capture how things are working in different nations and the learnings from there.

Kaur said that the Competition Act was amended substantially earlier this year, and some of the provisions have already been notified.

On certain new provisions, the regulator is holding public consultations now. Public consultation on CCI's proposed leniency plus scheme meant to encourage cartel participants to come clean is expected shortly, Kaur said.

“Some of them (amended Competition law provisions) are in the process of being notified. They are meant to address the challenges which we have been facing in the recent past,” sh said, adding that one key change is the merger regulation based on value of transactions. The idea is to bring under CCI’s ambit transactions that would otherwise escape its regulatory ambit.

These include killer acquisitions of companies that may be very small startups but having great deal of potential to promote competition. The amendments to Competition Act earlier year seek to bring these transactions under CCI's merger regulations.

CCI is also in the process of implementing a settlement and commitment scheme.

This would help in early market correction and promote ease of doing business.

“We had consultations on settlement and commitments and on combination (merger regulations). Now we are going to be working on the inputs received.”