Centre sets up committee to prepare draft digital competition law

The Centre has ordered setting up a committee that will review whether existing antitrust laws in the country are equipped to deal with the challenges that have emerged from the digital economy, and submit to the government a draft Digital Competition Act within three months.

The move comes amid increased regulatory antitrust-related scrutiny over big tech companies like Google, which last year was fined by the Competition Commission of India in two separate instances for allegedly abusing its market dominance in the Android mobile device ecosystem, and the app store market. Apart from that, a Parliamentary panel has, in a report released last year, also proposed to frame ‘ex-ante’ regulations to curb the market dominance of large tech companies.