Parliamentary Panel To Discuss Anti-Competition Allegations With Big Tech Execs On Aug 23

Top executives of big tech companies including Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Uber and Netflix, among others, are set to meet a parliamentary panel behind closed doors on August 23, 2022. The parliamentary committee will discuss several issues pertaining to the anti-competitive practices of global tech majors in the digital space.

A Lok Sabha secretariat notice outlined that the agenda of the meeting is to take oral evidence from the big tech company representatives on ‘anti-competitive practices by big tech companies’.

The standing committee had, in April 2022, decided to summon representatives of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and other big tech companies to examine their competitive conduct. 

“In our next hearing (on this issue), we will be calling most of the major tech companies to hear their perspective and how competition law in India is evolving to address the needs and challenges associated with digital space,” the committee chairman Jayant Sinha had said at the time.

In the latest development, he told PTI that the Indian representatives of these big tech companies and a few others will appear before the parliamentary panel on the issue of competitive behaviour in the digital market.

Sinha added that CCI and other ministries have been in conversation to set up a ‘digital markets and data unit’ for effectively dealing with anti-competition practices of big tech companies and bringing a new bill to amend the CCI Act.

A Plethora Of Investigations Against Big Tech Monopoly

Last month, several Indian startup top honchos appeared before the standing committee to discuss the anti-competitive practices employed by big tech companies. In attendance were Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal, Flipkart group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy and MakeMyTrip’s Deep Kalra, Swiggy’s VP Avantika Bajaj and All India Gaming Federation’s CEO Roland Landers.

The startup executives pointed out several issues with big tech companies including predatory pricing and a lack of platform equality to the committee.

Thus, the current call for deposition comes after big tech companies face widespread investigations for anti-competitive allegations. According to multiple reports, CCI is carrying out investigations against Google, Facebook-WhatsApp, Apple and Amazon, among others. 

CCI is conducting an investigation against Google for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the online news publishing business. The competition watchdog is in a lengthy investigation on the entire Future Retail-Amazon-Reliance deal as well as probing Amazon’s case, flouting the country’s competition law. 

In the case of Apple, CCI ordered a probe over alleged unfair business practices related to its app store policies, while Meta and its subsidiary WhatsApp are subject to CCI’s investigation due to their ‘headline-grabbing endeavours’.