Does denying market access apply only to a competitor?

“If they are not competing with each other in equivalent products, transactions or services, how can one engage in denial of market access to the other?” It is primarily on this basis that the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) in May overturned a decision of the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

Brief facts

Kansan News, broadcaster of a news and current affairs TV channel operating in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and the union territory of Chandigarh, filed information before the CCI against Fast Way Transmission, Hathway Sukhamrit Cable & Datacom, Creative Cable Network and Gurdeep Singh (the appellants) alleging infringement of sections 3 and 4 of the Competition Act, which prohibit anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance respectively.

The first three appellants, which are majority owned by Singh, are distributors of cable network channels and are multisystem operators (MSOs), which downlink broadcasters’ signals, decrypt and encrypt channels and provide a bundled feed consisting of multiple channels to local cable operators in Punjab and Chandigarh. It was contended that they control over 90% of the cable network distribution system in these places.

Amit Tambe is a partner at Trilegal and Kunal Chandra is a counsel. Trilegal is a full-service law firm with offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.