The Corporate Affairs Ministry (MCA), which appointed a 10-member interministerial committee to prepare a draft of the proposed Digital Competition Act, has decided to invite for consultations representatives of start-ups and big tech separately.
The meetings with start-ups and big tech representatives are scheduled for the first fortnight of March, sources close to the development said.
This decision will sound music to the ears of start-ups, who had recently cried foul about not having any meaningful representation in the interministerial committee. In fact, the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF), a think tank for digital start-ups, recently called for the expansion of the MCA-appointed panel so as to include more representation from the startup ecosystem. A larger representation of Indian start-ups would help them to voice the concerns being faced by the local startup community, ADIF had said.
Now, MCA has decided to invite ADIF for consultations on the proposed law.
Asked to comment on the latest MCA move and the likely thrust of their submissions to the Panel, an ADIF spokesperson told businessline, “It is important to have an ex-ante regulation in place for the digital markets in India, in line with the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance’s report on “Anti-competitive Practices by BigTech companies,” owing to the winner-take-all monopolistic outcomes in the digital markets.”
The arrival of a few critical online platforms and their leveraging of the associated network effects for their own benefits calls for regulatory supervision, an ADIF spokesperson added.
“And this is turning into a global phenomenon, as many of the developed nations, including the USA, EU, UK, and Australia, are working on such frameworks to restrict the abuse of monopolistic behaviour by these bigtechs,” said the ADIF spokesperson.
According to ADIF, Indian start-ups are both important stakeholders and impacted parties due to the abusive dominance of certain big tech.
The Centre-appointed 10-member panel met last Wednesday for the first time and began deliberations on the contours of a new Digital Competition Act. Top representatives of six ministries or departments participated in the first meeting of this panel with NITI Aayog and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and made detailed presentations.
The MCA-appointed panel is showing urgency, with the committee having been tasked with submitting its report within three months, they added.
After this first meeting of this panel, it has been decided to hold consultations with news publishers, start-ups, and big tech on the proposed law.
The Corporate Affairs Ministry (MCA) had on February 6 constituted a 10-member inter-ministerial committee to examine the need for a separate law on competition in digital markets. The panel had been tasked, among other things, with preparing a draft Digital Competition Act.
The Panel’s terms of reference include a review as to whether existing provisions of the Competition Act 2002 and the rules and regulations framed thereunder are sufficient to deal with the challenges that have emerged from the digital economy and to examine the need for an ex ante regulatory mechanism for digital markets through separate legislation.
