M/s. Mega Cab s Pvt. Ltd. vs. M/s ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

M/s. Mega Cab s Pvt. Ltd. v. M/s ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.1 (“Ola”)

AND

Meru Travel Solutions Private Limited v. Uber India Systems Private Limited (“Uber”)

Facts:

Informants in both cases (Meru, and Mega Cabs, collectively, “Informants”) had filed complaints under Section 19 (1) (a) of the Competition Act, 2002 (“Act“) against the Opposite Parties operating radio taxi services under the brand name “OLA” and “UBER”. Informants in their respective cases alleged that the respective Opposite Parties were in a dominant position in the relevant market and that they abused their position by engaging in anti-competitive practices including predatory pricing and incentivizing drivers to eliminate competition in violation of sections 3 and 4 of the Act.

Issues:

• Whether the Opposite Parties were in a dominant position.
• Whether the Opposite Parties indulged in practices of predatory pricing and incentives to drivers excluded other players from relevant market at the cost of suffering business losses.

Held:

The Competition Commission of India (“Commission”) held that Opposite Parties were not in a dominant position in the relevant market and consequently, the practices followed by Opposite Parties were not in violation of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act.

In the case of Ola, the Commission categorically held that access to funding sources, which enabled it to provide discounts and incentives, were not available exclusively to Ola and consequently, access to sources of funding could not be considered as being anti-competitive.

The relevant market in all cases was identified to be the “radio taxi services” and based on the city in which it was operating, the relevant geographical market would be determined as operations restricted to within the city limits.

The Commission in both the cases held that the reports relied by Informants in respective cases did not demonstrate that Opposite Parties were in a dominant position and additionally, due to the existence of several players, despite Opposite Parties being prominent did not establish its dominance in the market.

Further, with respect to violations of Section 3 of the Act, the Commission held that availability of the funds and innovative technology or models developed for operating in a particular market did not create entry barriers. Such avenues were available to all existing players and not exclusively to the Opposite Parties and therefore there was no violation of competition law.

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