1. INTRODUCTION
The Competition Commission of India (the
"Commission")1 has held that
bids by entities belonging to the same group cannot per se
be considered as amounting to cartelisation under the
Competition Act, 2002 (the "Act").
2. BACKGROUND
In a tender for the procurement of steel cord belt floated by
NLC India Limited ("NLCIL"), three group
companies (the "Phoenix Entities")
pitched to supply NLCIL with the material, along with one other
entity, Bridgestone Engineered
("Bridgestone") (together, the
"Tenderers").
Bridgestone was denied participation in the said tender due to
its inability to meet the technical pre-qualification requirements.
Subsequently, Sumeru (the authorised representative of Bridgestone)
wrote to NLCIL, suggesting that if Bridgestone was not considered,
there would be no competitive bidding as the other remaining
bidders were sister concerns.
