Feedback on the Committee on Digital Competition Law Report and draft Digital Competition Bill, 2024

Terms of use

Terms of Use

The use of this site and the content contained therein is governed by the Terms of Use. When you use this site you acknowledge that you have read the Terms of Use and that you accept and will be bound by the terms hereof and such terms as may be modified from time to time.

All text, graphics, audio, design and other works on the site are the copyrighted works of nasscom unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.
Content on the site is for personal use only and may be downloaded provided the material is kept intact and there is no violation of the copyrights, trademarks, and other proprietary rights. Any alteration of the material or use of the material contained in the site for any other purpose is a violation of the copyright of nasscom and / or its affiliates or associates or of its third-party information providers. This material cannot be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted or distributed in any way for non-personal use without obtaining the prior permission from nasscom.
The nasscom Members login is for the reference of only registered nasscom Member Companies.
nasscom reserves the right to modify the terms of use of any service without any liability. nasscom reserves the right to take all measures necessary to prevent access to any service or termination of service if the terms of use are not complied with or are contravened or there is any violation of copyright, trademark or other proprietary right.
From time to time nasscom may supplement these terms of use with additional terms pertaining to specific content (additional terms). Such additional terms are hereby incorporated by reference into these Terms of Use.

Disclaimer

The Company information provided on the nasscom web site is as per data collected by companies. nasscom is not liable on the authenticity of such data.
nasscom has exercised due diligence in checking the correctness and authenticity of the information contained in the site, but nasscom or any of its affiliates or associates or employees shall not be in any way responsible for any loss or damage that may arise to any person from any inadvertent error in the information contained in this site. The information from or through this site is provided "as is" and all warranties express or implied of any kind, regarding any matter pertaining to any service or channel, including without limitation the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement are disclaimed. nasscom and its affiliates and associates shall not be liable, at any time, for any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorised access to, alteration of, or use of information contained on the site. No representations, warranties or guarantees whatsoever are made as to the accuracy, adequacy, reliability, completeness, suitability or applicability of the information to a particular situation.
nasscom or its affiliates or associates or its employees do not provide any judgments or warranty in respect of the authenticity or correctness of the content of other services or sites to which links are provided. A link to another service or site is not an endorsement of any products or services on such site or the site.
The content provided is for information purposes alone and does not substitute for specific advice whether investment, legal, taxation or otherwise. nasscom disclaims all liability for damages caused by use of content on the site.
All responsibility and liability for any damages caused by downloading of any data is disclaimed.
nasscom reserves the right to modify, suspend / cancel, or discontinue any or all sections, or service at any time without notice.

For any grievances under the Information Technology Act 2000, please get in touch with Grievance Officer, Mr. Anirban Mandal at data-query@nasscom.in.

New

See all

No notification found.

Feedback on the Committee on Digital Competition Law Report and draft Digital Competition Bill, 2024

Sudipto

@Sudipto

May 17, 2024

Public Policy

335

On May 15, 2024, nasscom submitted feedback on the Report of the Committee on Digital Competition Law (CDCL) and draft Digital Competition Bill, 2024 (DCB).

Our overall position is that before government adopts a new ex-ante law, it requires more in-depth examination of what can be fixed in the existing scheme of things and better understanding of market realities/concerns.

Our feedback is organised in two parts: overall comments and specific comments. While we have provided here a summary of our feedback, please refer the attachment below for detailed representation.

In overall comments, we highlight the gaps in the proposal of CDCL to enact a new law with ex-ante obligations. Considering the high error costs of ex-ante regulations, and a lack of global prior experience on their implementation, we suggest that if Government adopts any new ex-ante law, it requires more careful and in-depth examination of market realities. Therefore, it is imperative to:

Examine the need for an ex-ante law: The CDCL Report has highlighted the enforcement gap under the Competition Act, 2002, and has listed two main shortcomings of the existing competition law regime, i.e., time-consuming nature of ex-post investigation and the narrow remedies and repetitive scrutiny. However, we note that it may be desirable to address these shortcomings by strengthening the existing regulatory framework before enacting a new legislation.
Provide empirical evidence: The need of introducing a new ex-ante law should be credibly demonstrated through extensive empirical evidence. This is particularly relevant in the Indian context.
Analyse impact with respect to MSMEs/start-ups: India is an emerging economy with a huge scope of innovation and growth for homegrown start-ups. At present, it is not clear whether the CDCL has considered the future impact of an ex-ante law on the innovation ecosystem in India.

Our specific comments list the concerns emerging from the provisions of the DCB, along with suggestions to minimise the same where possible. Some of these suggestions are:

Designation as Systematically Significant Digital Enterprises (SSDE): SSDE to be allowed to contest designation when it does not have significant presence.
Quantitative thresholds for designation are too low: User thresholds should be grounded in some basis that is relevant to the Indian context. Additionally, both end-user and business users’ criteria need to be satisfied to meet the user threshold.
Right to consult CCI: SSDEs should have a right to consult CCI during the framing of conduct requirements and notification of CDS.
Concept of Proportionality should be included in the DCB: CCI must ensure that conduct requirements under DCB are proportionate to the harms they seek to prevent. Further, the penalties should be revised with a view to reducing them. Additionally, penalties should not be imposed on the associate digital enterprise’s managerial personnel for the conduct of the SSDE.
Countervailing benefits: SSDEs should be allowed to seek exemption from obligations under DCB by demonstrating the countervailing benefits of their conduct.
Self-Preferencing: Ranking based on objective and transparent parameters to be allowed as an exception.
Data usage: The obligations on data usage should be removed due to several reasons, such as lack of clarity, misalignment with Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and unintended outcomes. Further, an informed decision can be made by CCI after conducting India focused studies to identify the possible competitive harms associated with data usage.
Restriction on third party application: The scope of obligation needs to be reduced.
Tying and Bundling: The scope of obligation should be reduced to ensure its non-applicability on legitimate business practices.
Schedule I: Cloud service and video-sharing platform services should be excluded from the list of CDS. The definition of online intermediation service and advertising service should be made narrower.
Investigation findings: A copy of the Director General investigation findings and supplementary report should be mandatorily provided to the parties concerned.

We continue our discussions with industry on competition matters to evolve our views. For any queries related to the subject-matter above, please contact Garima Prakash (garima@nasscom.in), Sudipto Banerjee (sudipto@nasscom.in), or Dhananjay Sharma (dhananjay@nasscom.in) with a copy to policy@nasscom.in.

digital markets competition ex-ante gatekeeper

Disclaimer

That the contents of third-party articles/blogs published here on the website, and the interpretation of all information in the article/blogs such as data, maps, numbers, opinions etc. displayed in the article/blogs and views or the opinions expressed within the content are solely of the author's; and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of NASSCOM or its affiliates in any manner. NASSCOM does not take any liability w.r.t. content in any manner and will not be liable in any manner whatsoever for any kind of liability arising out of any act, error or omission. The contents of third-party article/blogs published, are provided solely as convenience; and the presence of these articles/blogs should not, under any circumstances, be considered as an endorsement of the contents by NASSCOM in any manner; and if you chose to access these articles/blogs , you do so at your own risk.

Download Attachment

Sudipto