November 09, 2018
Case name: Samir Agrawal v. ANI Technologies and ors.
In this case, the Informant alleged contravention of the provisions of Section 3 of the Competition Act, 2002 by the OPs i.e. Ola and Uber, whereby he was primarily aggrieved by the pricing mechanism adopted by the OPs while providing radio taxi services. The Informant alleged that the algorithmic pricing adopted by the OPs takes away the liberty of individual drivers to compete with each other and thus, amounts to price fixing by the OPs, in contravention of the provisions of Section 3 of the Act.
Also read Competition Law in India- In a Nutshell
In view of the facts and circumstances of the case, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) was of the view that there was no contravention of the provisions of Section 3 of the Act by the OPs in the case.
The CCI was also of the view that Informant’s allegation regarding price discrimination was also misplaced and was unsupported by any evidence on record. Price discrimination can perhaps be scrutinised under Section 4 of the Act, which has not been alleged by the Informant.
The CCI further opined that imposition of discriminatory price is prohibited under Section 4(2)(a)(ii) of the Act only when indulged in by a dominant enterprise, which was apparently not the Informant’s present case as he did not allege that any of the OPs is dominant in the app-based taxi services market.
The Commission’s order in the case can be accessed here.
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