The Competition Law Review Committee (CLRC), set up earlier this year by the Centre, has constituted Working Groups with a view to re-calibrating Competition Law in India.
Each of the four Working Groups has been assigned a particular topic, including Regulatory Structure; Competition Law; Competition Policy, Advocacy and Advisory Functions; and New Age Markets and Big Data.
A number of lawyers from the top law firms have been appointed to each of these Working Groups. The following is the composition of the groups:
| WG on Regulatory Structure | WG on Competition Law | WG on Competition Policy, Advocacy, and Advisory | WG on New Markets and Big Data |
| In Charge – Dr. MS Sahoo (IBBI Chairperson) | In Charge – Dr S Chakravarthy | In Charge – Prof Aditya Bhattacharjea | In Charge – Harshvardhan Singh |
| Somasekhar Sundaresan | Pallavi Shroff | Harshvardhan Singh | Prof Aditya Bhattacharjea |
| Pallavi Shroff | Anand Pathak | Suhail Nathani | Kunal Bahl (Snapdeal) |
| Zia Mody | Samir Gandhi | Reps of ASSOCHAM & PHD | Naveen Tiwari (InMobi) |
| Ajay Shah | Nisha Kaur Uberoi | Team Commissioned by CCI | Deepinder Goyal (Zomato) |
| Dr Kaushik Krishnan | Haigreve Khaitan | Manoj Pandey | Bhavish Agarwal (OLA) |
| Representatives of FICCI/CII | Ramji Srinivasan | Vijay Sharma (PayTM) | |
| CB Bhave/UK Sinha | Representatives of FICCI/CII/IVCA | Ramji Srinivasan | |
| Smita Jhingran | Jyoti Jindgar | Samir Gandhi | |
| Suhan Mukerji | |||
| NASSCOM & IVCA | |||
| Payal Malik |
Managing Partner of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas Pallavi Shroff has been appointed to the WGs on Regulatory Structure and Competition Law. Also on the Regulatory Structure WG are independent lawyer Somasekhar Sundaresan, and Founding Partner of AZB & Partners, Zia Mody.
The Competition Law WG also comprises Managing Partner of P&A Law Offices, Anand Pathak; AZB Partner Samir Gandhi; Trilegal Partner and National Head of the Competition Law Practice, Nisha Kaur Uberoi; Senior Partner at Khaitan & Co, Haigreve Khaitan; and Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India, Ramji Srinivasan. Gandhi and Srinivasan are also part of the WG on New Markets and Big Data along with PLR Chambers’ Suhan Mukerji.
Economic Laws Practice Managing Partner Suhail Nathani is part of the Competition Policy, Advocacy, and Advisory WG.
The Competition Law Review Committee was set up by the Central government in September this year, with a view to reviewing the Competition Act, 2002. The agenda before the CLRC included looking into international best practices in the competition fields, especially anti-trust laws, merger guidelines and handling cross-border competition issues, as well a studying other regulatory regimes/institutional mechanisms/government policies which overlap with the Competition Act.
Pursuant to a meeting of the CLRC on October 31, the above mentioned Working Groups were constituted. They are expected to submit their findings to the Committee within four weeks from November 13, the date of issue of the order.