Vaish Associates has started a competition law practice with the hire of former Jindal Steel in-houser and Competition Commission of India (CCI) registrar M M Sharma.
Sharma (pictured) has joined as head of competition law & practice in the firm's Delhi office and he aims to build the competition law practice, which currently consists of him and two associates.
He said: "The future [of competition law] is good because India is going to go the way European Commission is going; the European Commission is coming down very heavily on cartels."
He added that even though the competition practice at Vaish was being built up from scratch, he was already advising a French company on entering the Indian electricity market but was facing entry barriers from local competitors.
Sharma is currently trying to recruit the firm's corporate associates to join the competition team, having given two internal lectures on competition law.
Sharma was 'adviser legal' at Jindal Steel, heading up an in-house team of around two lawyers from 2008 until he joined Vaish Associates in July of this year.
Between 2006 and 2008 he was additional registrar at the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
Several firms have been trying to grow their competition practice after the CCI assumed some of its executive powers in May.
An article in Legally India's Legal Opinions series recently analysed the lessons the CCI could learn from the work of the European competition regulators.
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JSA has Manas Chaudhry (member CCI and involved in drafting) and now Vaish has former registrar of CCI...
looks like this is the way forward for Indian firms to grow theri competition practice. is there any other Indian firm that has hired former officials of CCI?
M M Sharma.
What work has the commission done of late?
What parts of the Competition Act of India have been "notified"?
The act has a "strking resemblance" to the EU directives on competition (and the UK Competition Act). So much for Indian lawyers claiming a hand in its drafting!
And pray, whatever happened to the good old MRTPC?
I'll try to defend the 'mute' Commission as in India or any where in the World, the regulators can not join issues with bloggers!
1. The Competition Commission of India(CCI) , of which I happened to be a part for over 2 years, did what was the most difficult thing to do-undertaking "competition advocacy" without having enforcement powers! It prepared itself by training its skeltal staff of only 6 officers and drafted regulations under the Competition Act, 2002 , after its amendment in 2007 (necessitated due to a proxy PIL filed by some vested intersets in Supreme Court) , in a record time of one year , thus keeping it ready to commence enforcement as and when notified by the Government. Of these, as was expected the draft regulations relating to Mergers and Acquistions recived maximum responses from Law Firms, including overseas Bar associations ,such as the the American Bar Associations etc,the Buisness chambers such as the FICCI,CII, ASSOCHAM etc. but with few exceptions , none of the commentators had done home work and the comments were vague bordering only on the 210 days mandatory waiting period. No comments were received on the General Regulations, the Transaction of Buisness regulations and the Engaggment of experts regulations( in which I happened to contribute maximum) though theses remained on the website of the Commission for over 6 months before being notified. The CCI undertook as amny as 60 Seminars and workshops , including around 10 National workshops , which were widely particepated and it took out enough advoocacy literature in the form of advovacy booklets on main competition issues such as "cartels',"IPR" Abuse of Dominace"etc. It also got the Bar Council of India, the Regulator of the legal profession in India agree to agree to include "competition law" as an optional subject for LL.B course in all universities in India by an amendment in the Advocate Act, 1961. I can go on and on . But I will pause and ask anyone who knows the State of our Regulators , has any other Regulators done so much ground work with such skeltal staff even before they commence operation. I am proud of our achievments.
2. Only sections 3 and 4 of the Competition act,relating to anti-competitive agreements (Both horizontal and vertical agreements) and Abuse of dominant position by enterprises have been notified from 20 May 2009. And yes, you are right , these two sections resemble Article 81 and 82 of the Treaty of Rome, which is the main source of the entire jurisprudence in the European commission on these main parts of competition law and policy (apart form Article 85 relating to mergers) . But there are very subtle differences which make these sections border close to the American concepts of the law , such as dominace of enterprises is not based on market share alone , unlike in Europe .
And I have not heard any India lawyer claiming having "Drafted" a new Act! By the way Europe also borrowed heavily from the Americal anti-trust Law in 60's .
3. The govt has recently notified Section 66 of the Competition act . This , in effect, repeals the MRTP Act, 1969 . The MRTP Commission can not now take up any new case/complaint and it will get dissolved in 2 years time under this "sun-set provision" to complete the pending inquiries.
MMS
Glad to know the CCI have been burning the midnight oil.
There has been the unhappy practice in India of regulators in an ever-expanding list of sectors being a fertile resting ground for retired bureaucrats or sinecures for whom the govt wish to favour.
More often than not these regulators side with the govt (see what is happening in the electricty sector) or are blatantly biased. That's when they are not hopelessly bogged down with procedure and plain red tape.
Incidentally, the present govt. has a minister who was only recently the chief election commissioner!! Talk about impartial referees ...
(Have they ever heard of the dictum: justice must not only be done ...but seen to be done).
If anyone from the CCI is reading this, here is an "uncompetitive practice" worth investigating:
Recently I went to buy a mosquito repellant device ...and the ones in the market are not inter-changeable. So if I buy a machine of brand X, I cannot use brand Y's refill liquid repellant.
I believe that is an unfair "tie-in" ....if I have bought a camera by brand XT, why cannot I use film belonging to a rival, XR?
The work done by the CCI in this short span of time is really commendable, but we have to wait and watch as the time goes by, to see how much teeth the CCI will have in comparison to the MRTP Commission.
Further, it is a pleasure to know that Vaish Associates is looking to grow in the right direction. I had worked there as an intern previously and has a fine experience.
Mr. Sharma, I would be happy to be given an opportunity to work with your team at Vaish. Kindly let me know whether Mrs Neerja Kapoor is still the HR or has someone else joined in her place, I did try and contact her, without success.
Regards,
Debjyoti Sarkar
BBA.LLB
[Many thanks for your comment - you are correct and we apologise for the mistake. M M Sharma is currently "Head-Competition Law & Practice", not partner as erroneously stated. -Ed]
I have also read his new Competition bulletin...which is very impressive
Regards
Vaibhav Choukse
LLM (Kings College London)
If you are aware that he is not the partner, then the title of the article should be ammended to suitably reflect the same. the title is false and misleading and shows that the magazine has not done its research properly before printing an article. Moreover, if you accept the error, then as a gesture, you should ammend the title of the article...
[Thanks for pointing this out, we had accidentally ommitted to correct the headline of this story. -Ed]
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