Major digital players may get advice on dos & don'ts

A high-level Committee on the Digital Competition Law will likely recommend "dos and don'ts" for systemically important digital intermediaries, checking big tech's ability to distort fair trade, a person aware of the panel's deliberations said.

The panel, chaired by corporate affairs secretary Manoj Govil, is likely to define systemically important digital intermediaries based on a set of criteria, including the nature of business, turnover, and user base, both global and local, the person told ET.

Smaller digital firms, however, will be kept outside the ambit of the new regime, he added. It may suggest a separate law for digital competition given the fast expansion of the Indian market and the potential of large players to impact fair trade rules across a broad range of businesses even beyond the digital sector.

The panel will soon finalise its recommendations, having already concluded stakeholder consultations, including local start-ups and big global players such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Twitter, he said.

This comes as some of the large technology players, including Google, Apple, and Facebook face probes by the competition regulator for possible abuse of fair-trade rules.

"The committee could suggest ex-ante regulations for the large players. Even the EU has adopted ex-ante structural limitations on the practices of large technology platforms," he said.

Large global technology companies have reportedly opposed the idea of ex-ante regulations in India.

Establishing the anti-competitive behaviour of large players under the extant norms typically takes time, given the requirement of thorough investigations by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

Besides, a CCI order can be challenged by the aggrieved parties, and by the time the matter reaches a finality, the affected players, often being small, may have perished or their operations would have been substantially hampered, the person said, making a case for ex-ante regulations.


Set up in February, the panel was asked to examine the need for any ex-ante regulatory mechanism for digital markets through a separate law and to study international best practices among others.

The panel's report will factor in the recommendations made by the stakeholders and the December 2022 report of the parliamentary standing committee on finance, in addition to its own inputs.

Once the draft is ready, there could be further deliberations within the panel before the report is finally submitted to the corporate affairs ministry for its consideration, said another person.

The committee comprises 10 members, including the chairman, six invitees from various departments, and Niti Aayog. In its December 2022 report, the parliamentary standing committee on finance, headed by Jayant Sinha, suggested the need for a separate digital competition law.

The CCI had slapped a fine of ₹ 1,337 crore on Google in October last year for allegedly misusing its dominant position in the Android ecosystem, which has now been challenged at the Supreme Court.

The regulator is also in the process of concluding an investigation into the app store and billing policies of Apple following allegations about the high commission charged by the iPhone maker and the lack of third-party payment options.

The country's digital economy is estimated to grow at a rapid pace to reach about 20% of its gross domestic product by 2026 from roughly 10% now, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT, said last month.