President Draupadi Murmu has approved the bill to amend the Competition Act and sought changes to ensure regulatory certainty and promote trust-based business environment.
The Bill to amend the Competition Act was Approved by Parliament on 3 AprilAbout eight months after its introduction in the Lok Sabha, which gave its approval on 29 March, The Bill was also referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, which submitted its report to Parliament on December 13 last year.
Rajya Sabha approved the bill on 3 April. Both houses passed the law without any discussion.
“The Hon’ble President of India has approved the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023, an Act to further amend the Competition Act, 2002,” CCI said in a tweet on Wednesday.
Separately, in a series of tweets, Competition Commission of India (CCI) acting chairperson Sangeeta Verma said the updated law ensures regulatory certainty and promotes a trust-based business environment.
“The updated law provides for faster timelines for approval of M&A filings. Introduces settlement and commitment framework for faster market recovery,” she said.
According to him, the amended law also encourages parties in ongoing cartel investigations to disclose information about other cartels in case of lesser penalties.
Further, she said that it provides certainty to stakeholders by prescribing a limitation period of three years for filing information on anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position.
The amended law has also introduced “transaction value” as another criterion for notifying mergers and acquisitions to the CCI.
This is the first time after the Competition Act came into force in 2009 that amendments are being made to the Act.
The law was brought in 2002 and subsequently, it underwent amendments in 2007 and 2009. In May 2009, the anti-trust provisions of the law came into force and two years later in May 2011, the CCI began screening mergers and acquisitions.