Combinations – CCI amends its regulations to provide for green channel approvals

19th August

Competition Commission of India (CCI) has amended its CCI (Procedure in regard to the transaction of business relating to Combinations) Regulations, 2011 to provide for approval of certain specified combinations under Green Channel.

As per the new Regulation 5A, effective from 15-8-2019, the parties to the categories of combinations as specified in the newly introduced Schedule III may give a notice in Form I (under Regulation 5) along with a declaration as per new Schedule IV, and upon such filing and its acknowledgment, the combination will be deemed to have been approved.

The new Schedule III in this regard states that the parties, to be eligible for such approvals, should,

1. not produce/provide similar or identical or substitutable product or service (horizontal arrangements);
2. not engage in any activity relating to production, supply, distribution, storage, sale and service or trade in product or service which are at different stage or level of production chain (vertical arrangements); and
3. not engaged in any activity relating to production, supply, distribution, storage, sale and service or trade in product or service which are complementary to each other.

The notification dated 13-8-2019 in this regard also substitutes Form I (for notice).

The procedure for filing notice, which provides for giving summary of the combination, not containing any confidential information, has also been revised. Amendments in this regard have been made in Regulation 13 of the Regulations.

It may however be noted that if CCI finds, after providing hearing opportunity to the parties, that the combination does not fall under Schedule III and/or the declaration filed is incorrect, the notice given and the approval granted will be void ab initio.