Regulation of the Competition Commission on Foreign Investment Combination Agreements with Special Reference to Vodafone Case

Abstract

According to the World Investment Report 2020, India stands in the status as 9th largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) holder in 2019, with 51 billion dollars of FDI inflows in this year.3 India’s embrace of the free?market paradigm in 1991 considerably expanded the economic policymaking autonomy of subnational governments.4 The rich resources of India attract many foreign investors to pour investment in India. India is also in need of FDI for the fulfilment of investment, technology, managerial skills and market access.5 Foreign investment bringing in goods and services helps not only in the increase of GDP rate but it is also accused of anti-competitive impacts on domestic companies.6 In 1999, the conservative and restrictive Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) of 1973 was repealed and replaced with the flexible Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) of 1999. 7 Competition is the life force of markets that create the best incentives for businesses to increase efficiency, drive their productivity and fuels innovation. 8 The Competition Commission of India (CCI) safeguards the corporate market from anti-competitive impacts. This paper analyses the regulations of the Competition Commission on FDI combination agreements through its anticompetitive impacts for understanding its consequences on the consumers’ adhesion agreements and impacts on crowding in or out of domestic investors. The main objective is to study on the indispensable need of Foreign Direct Investment flow in India and to make a study on the monitoring role of the Competition Commission in the approval of FDI Combination agreement.