Competition is essential for the economic development and to reduce economic inequalities. The provisions of the Act have overriding effect on other statute, e.g., Companies Act, Stamp Duty, FEMA etc. and Civil Courts have no jurisdiction for taking matters or granting injunction for action taken under this Act. The Act was enacted for the following purposes:

• Prohibition of Anti Competitive Agreements

• Prohibition of Abuse of Dominant Positions

• Regulations of Combinations

An agreement entered by Enterprise(s) or person(s) in respect of production, supply, distribution, storage, acquisition or control of goods or prohibition of services, which causes or is likely to cause an appreciable adverse effect on Competition within India shall be void. [Section 3].

Any agreement entered or decision taken including cartel between Enterprise(s) or person(s) engaged in identical or similar trade of goods or provisions of services which,

• Determine the purchase or the sale price,

• Limits or controls production, supply, markets, technical development, investments, or provision services,

• Shares the market or the source of production or provision of services,

• Directly or indirectly results in bid rigging or collusive bidding.

shall be presumed to have an appreciable adverse effect on Competition. However this section will not apply to Joint Venture Agreements, if such agreement increases efficiency in production, supply distribution, storage, acquisition or control of goods or provisions of services.

Abuse of Dominant Position by an enterprise is prohibited [Section 4(1)] though dominant position itself is not prohibited.

Following shall be treated as combinations if joint assets/ Turnover after such event exceeds the following [Section 5(1)].

Sr.No.	Acquisition/ Merger etc.	In India Joint Assets/Turnover	In and Outside India Joint Assets/Turnover
1	By Enterprise	Rs. 1,000 crores/	US $ 500 million/
		Rs. 3,000 crores	US $ 1,500 million
2	By Groups	Rs. 4,000 crores/	US $ 2 billion/
		Rs. 12,000 crores	US $ 6 billion

Value of assets are computed by deducting depreciation from and adding value of intangible assets to Book value of assets as per Audited Financial Statement prior to year of proposed acquisition/merger.

Any combination, which causes an appreciable adverse effect on Competition, shall be void.

Any person/enterprise proposes to enter into a combination must give a notice to Competition commission within 30 days of approval of proposal by Board of Directors or execution of an agreement. The option is given as a measure of precaution and if there is any difficulty one will have to establish that the combination has not affected Competition adversely. Commission has a maximum of 210 days to pass its order in the absence of which it is deemed to have approved the combination.

CCI can pass the following orders:

• Issue Interim Order

• Temporary injunction

Appeal against order of the commission lies before Appellate Tribunal within a period of 60 days

Appeal against order of the Appellate Tribunal lies before Supreme Court within a period of 60 days

Chartered Accountants are authorized to appear before the Commission as well as Appellate Tribunal to represent the Complainant or the Defendant.