CUTS-ISID Policy Roundtable on World Competition Day 2022

As part of the World Competition Day celebrations 2022, the Institute hosted the CUTS-ISID Policy Roundtable. Every year, 5^th December is celebrated as the World Competition Day ever since the first WCD announced by the International Network of Civil Society Organisation on Competition in 2010. This year the theme of World Competition Day celebrations has been the ‘Competition Policy and the Climate Change’. The rich discussions cantered around the challenges while incorporating environmental issues under the current competition regulation. The eminent panellists suggested that competition regulation can complement environmental regulations by considering the environmental efforts undertaken by the companies while assessing competition, when relevant cases arises. It has been generally accepted that the existing provisions in the Competition Act itself allows to assess environmental issues arising in competition assessment. There has been a detailed discussion on the existing provisions in the Competition Act to deal with the issue. Nevertheless, environmental challenges are a broader issue, regulation of which mostly falls under environmental regulations, and the role of competition regulation is only to complement it, as it is a collective effort for a sustainable green future. Better coordination with regulatory agencies within and outside the country would be beneficial in this regard.

Jyoti Jindger Bhanot, Head of Antitrust Division and Secretary, Competition Commission of India made the special address. The other distinguished panellists included Dhanendra Kumar, Former Chairperson, CCI; Augustine Peter, former Member, CCI; Abha Yadav, Assistant Professor, National Law University, Delhi; and Beena Saraswathy, Assistant Professor, ISID. Arvind Mayaram, Former Finance Secretary of India and Chairman, CIRC and Satyaki Roy, Associate Professor, ISID delivered welcome speech. Kirit Parikh, Chairman, Integrated Research and Action for Development chaired and moderated the event.

Background

Competition policy can play a role in greening the economy, including by incentivising for green innovation and empowering consumers to make informed decisions. Since, collective initiatives by businesses is mooted to fight climate change, competition policy is a key to ensure efficient allocation of capital needed to reach environmental goals. At micro level, competition authorities can also integrate economic and non-economic environmental effects in competition assessments while dealing with anti-competitive agreements, co-operation agreements, abuse of dominance and merger control. They can also help remove restrictive practices in the transfer of green technologies.

However, in doing competition assessment, authorities may face challenges, such as determining the nature, scope and temporal extent of environmental effects. There are studies now available, including from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which are offering clarity on how to deal with such challenges. Competition authorities, thus, first need to get sensitised and then work towards their capacity building on the interface between competition policy and climate change.

The CUTS International/Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID) Policy Roundtable will address some of these issues. It is organized on December 05 which the day when United Nations Conference on Restrictive Business Practices adopted the UN Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices in 1980. Motivated by the interest and support of many competition agencies and other stakeholders to the cause, the International Network of Civil Society Organisations on Competition (INCSOC) announced the first World Competition Day on December 05, 2010.

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Agenda