The Act regulates the various forms of business combinations through Competition Commission of India. Under the Act, no person or enterprise shall enter into a combination, in the form of an acquisition, merger or amalgamation, which causes or is likely to cause an appreciable adverse effect on competition in the relevant market and such a combination shall be void.
Enterprises intending to enter into a combination may give notice to the Commission, but this notification is voluntary. But, all combinations do not call for scrutiny unless the resulting combination exceeds the threshold limits in terms of assets or turnover as specified by the Competition Commission of India. The Commission while regulating a ‘combination’ shall consider the following factors :-
• Actual and potential competition through imports;
• Extent of entry barriers into the market;
• Level of combination in the market;
• Degree of countervailing power in the market;
• Possibility of the combination to significantly and substantially increase prices or profits;
• Extent of effective competition likely to sustain in a market;
• Availability of substitutes before and after the combination;
• Market share of the parties to the combination individually and as a combination;
• Possibility of the combination to remove the vigorous and effective competitor or competition in the market;
• Nature and extent of vertical integration in the market;
• Nature and extent of innovation;
• Whether the benefits of the combinations outweigh the adverse impact of the combination.
