The Enforcement Of Anti-Trust Laws: Challenges And Solutions

Introduction

Competition law, or antitrust law, is at the heart of any modern market economy: it ensures that markets work without their beneficial workings being compromised by monopoly power, cartelization, or exclusionary practices. In India, the Competition Act of 2002 marks a clear transition away from the old Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act to a more sophisticated approach consistent with international best practices. It is not just about penalizing monopoly power but about ensuring its abuse, consumer welfare, and efficiency objectives.

Although the Indian regimes offer a strong legal framework for the promotion of competition, with an increasingly sophisticated Competition Commission of India (CCI), the issue of challenges in the enforcement of anti-trust laws persists. This is attributed to the complexities that exist in the markets, information asymmetry, procedural issues, conflicts of jurisdictions, and the dynamic nature of the digital