Supreme Court Resolves Regulatory Ambiguity Between IBC And The Competition Act

The Competition Act, 2002 mandates the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) to regulate large sized mergers and acquisitions beyond high value thresholds (in terms of assets or turnovers) prescribed for “combinations” under the Competition Act, 2002 (“the Act”) to assess whether such transactions could adversely affect competition in the relevant markets, It is an exante process which requires a deep and forward-looking economic analysis of the competition scenario likely to emerge post such proposed combination. In most cases, the CCI accords “conditional approvals”, requiring modifications such as disinvestment of overlapping assets to protect competition in the markets. On the other hand, the acquisition of strategic assets of distressed companies by resolution applicants under the corporate insolvency resolution process (“CIRP”) as envisaged under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC or Code”), may require prior approval from the CCI, if the