Understanding the Multilateral Regime’s Influence on India’s Competition Law

When a company in one country forms a cartel with competitors abroad to fix prices, or when a multinational corporation abuses its dominant position across several markets simultaneously, no single nation’s competition law can fully address the harm. This is the central problem that has driven decades of international discussions on competition policy – and it is precisely why understanding the multilateral framework around competition law matters for anyone studying how India’s own regulatory regime came to be shaped.

Why competition law cannot stay within borders 🔗

Markets have become global far faster than laws have. A price-fixing agreement between pharmaceutical companies headquartered in Europe can drive up medicine costs in India. A merger between two technology giants incorporated in the United States can suppress competition for Indian consumers. Major international institutions, including UNCTAD, the WTO, the ICN, and the OECD, are actively engaged in addressing anti-competitive practices through coordinated regulatory efforts precisely because enforcement by one country alone is simply not enough.

The concept of a multilateral regime for competition law refers to internationally agreed frameworks, principles, and cooperative mechanisms that guide how countries design and enforce their domestic competition policies. These are not always binding treaties – in fact, most are not – but they set norms, share best practices, and create pressure for regulatory convergence across borders.

The foundational role of UNCTAD 🔗

The earliest and most significant multilateral instrument in this space came not from the WTO but from the United Nations. In 1980, the UN General Assembly adopted the Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices – commonly called the UN Set – under resolution 35/63. This was a landmark moment: for the first time, countries collectively acknowledged that restrictive business practices, particularly those by large transnational corporations, could harm international trade and needed to be checked through shared principles.

The UN Set does three important things. It provides equitable rules for controlling anti-competitive practices, recognizes the development dimension of competition law, and creates a framework for international cooperation and exchange of best practices. Crucially, it acknowledges that developing countries face distinct challenges and need flexibility in designing their own regimes.

The UNCTAD Model Law on Competition 🔗

Building on the UN Set, UNCTAD developed its Model Law on Competition to provide guidance to developing countries on how to draft their competition laws, structures, and policies to protect against anti-competitive conduct. This Model Law covers substantive elements such as prohibitions on horizontal price-fixing, vertical restraints, abuse of dominance, and merger control. It does not bind any country but acts as a reference point – a template that nations can adapt to their own legal and economic contexts.

UNCTAD serves as the focal point for competition law and policy within the UN system and remains the guardian of the UN Set, which continues to be reviewed and updated through conferences held every five years. The Intergovernmental Group of Experts (IGE) on Competition Law and Policy meets annually to monitor the implementation of the UN Set, share enforcement experiences, and identify gaps in regulatory capacity – particularly in developing nations.

Competition law inside the WTO framework 🔗

The WTO Working Group on the Interaction between Trade and Competition Policy was active from 1997 through 2003 and carried out a wide-ranging study of the relationship between trade and competition policy. This body emerged from the 1996 Singapore Ministerial Conference, which established four working groups on what became known as the “Singapore issues” – one of which was trade and competition policy.

The Doha Ministerial Declaration of 2001 gave a formal boost to these discussions. Competition policy was treated as a Singapore issue, with the working group instructed to focus on clarifying scope and definition, transparency, non-discrimination, and development provisions. The Declaration explicitly recognized the case for a multilateral framework to enhance the contribution of competition policy to international trade and development, signaling broad consensus that trade liberalization without accompanying competition rules was incomplete.

The Cancún collapse and its aftermath 🔗

The momentum generated by Doha hit a wall at the 2003 WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico. The Singapore issues, including trade and competition, were moved off the Doha agenda, with developing countries playing an active role in that outcome. India, along with a coalition of developing nations, resisted binding multilateral competition rules, wary that such commitments would constrain their domestic industrial policy and economic sovereignty.

After Cancún, the issue of competition policy was dropped from the Doha Round and the WTO Working Group on this topic has since been inactive. However, this did not mean the issue disappeared. Competition policy provisions continued to appear in bilateral and regional trade agreements, and important discussions moved to other forums – particularly the OECD and the International Competition Network (ICN).

The OECD’s contribution to global norms 🔗

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has played a significant, if quieter, role in shaping global competition norms. The OECD perceives competition policies as a step towards creating contestable markets at the international level, and recommends that all countries adopt competition policies and establish enforcement agencies. It also advocates that OECD countries should cooperate to restrain anti-competitive practices with cross-border effects.

The OECD’s Global Forum on Competition brings together both member and non-member countries – including India – to discuss enforcement trends, exchange case studies, and build consensus on best practices. The OECD and UNCTAD together have contributed significantly to discussions on competition policy through capacity-building initiatives and by working alongside national competition agencies. Unlike UNCTAD, the OECD’s audience has traditionally been advanced economies, but its influence over global regulatory standards is substantial, particularly in areas such as merger review and cartel enforcement.

How these international developments shaped India’s Competition Act, 2002 🔗

India’s journey toward modern competition law cannot be separated from these international currents. The country’s earlier law – the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act (MRTP Act), 1969 – was designed for a different era: one of a closed economy, state-led development, and concentration of economic power in a few industrial houses. After the 1991 liberalization, it became increasingly clear that this framework was obsolete.

India passed the Competition Act, 2002 with the intention of enforcing anti-competitive behavior and aligning with WTO agreements. The Raghavan Committee, which recommended the new law, explicitly drew on international models – including the competition provisions within GATS and TRIPS – and was influenced by the global regulatory conversation happening simultaneously at the WTO’s Working Group.

India’s new competition policy emerged as an offshoot of the Singapore Ministerial Declaration, and the Act reflects internationally recognized categories of anti-competitive conduct: cartels and anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominant position, and combinations (mergers and acquisitions) likely to cause appreciable adverse effects on competition.

India’s position: participation with caution 🔗

India’s engagement with the multilateral competition regime has been selective. India has both resisted and embraced multilateralism depending on the balance of its offensive and defensive trade interests. On competition specifically, India actively participated in WTO discussions and even made submissions to the Working Group on Trade and Competition Policy, but ultimately opposed binding multilateral disciplines – partly because it saw flexibility as essential for its own developmental goals.

This is not unusual for a developing economy. The multilateral framework has always struggled with the tension between harmonization – pushing all countries toward similar rules – and policy space – allowing each country the room to tailor its competition law to local conditions. India’s position reflects a consistent preference for the latter, even as it builds an increasingly sophisticated domestic competition regime through the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

The International Competition Network and cooperation beyond treaties 🔗

Since the collapse of WTO negotiations on competition, much of the practical work of international cooperation has shifted to the International Competition Network (ICN) – a network of competition authorities from over 130 jurisdictions, including the CCI. The ICN does not produce binding rules. Instead, it develops recommended practices and procedural guidelines through working groups, which member agencies can voluntarily adopt. This softer form of multilateralism has proven more durable precisely because it does not require treaty negotiations or legislative action.

Governments are also encouraged to establish bilateral or multilateral agreements to exchange information, intelligence, and evidence of anti-competitive conduct. The CCI has entered into Memoranda of Understanding with several foreign competition authorities – including those of the EU, the US, and BRICS nations – to facilitate information sharing in cross-border cases.

Why this matters for India going forward 🔗

Global markets continue to evolve in ways that strain domestic enforcement. Digital platforms that operate across dozens of jurisdictions, global supply chain cartels, and cross-border mergers between technology giants all present enforcement challenges that no single regulator can fully address. Increased international cooperation is required, including in digital platforms’ governance, to promote data flow with trust, safety, and confidence – a recognition that the next frontier of competition enforcement will be even more global than the last.

For India, the implication is clear. The Competition Amendment Act, 2023 – which tightened merger thresholds, introduced settlement mechanisms, and expanded the scope of anti-competitive agreements – reflects ongoing calibration not just to domestic market realities but also to global enforcement standards. Keeping pace with multilateral discussions is no longer optional; it is a practical necessity for any economy integrated into global trade and investment.

What do you think? Given that a binding multilateral competition agreement at the WTO has remained elusive for over two decades, should India push for renewed negotiations on a global competition framework, or is the current model of voluntary cooperation through bodies like the ICN and UNCTAD sufficient to protect Indian markets from cross-border anti-competitive practices? And as digital platforms increasingly dominate commerce both within India and globally, does the existing multilateral regime need a fundamental rethink to address the competitive harms unique to the digital economy?

References

1. https://ijrti.org/papers/IJRTI2502104.pdf
2. https://unctad.org/topic/competition-and-consumer-protection/the-united-nations-set-of-principles-on-competition
3. https://unctad.org/publication/model-law-competition
4. https://unctad.org/publication/unctad-model-law-competition-after-30-years
5. https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/ersd201812_e.pdf
6. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dda_e/dohaexplained_e.htm
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha_Development_Round
8. https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstreams/1f05f2df-31f1-4994-be7b-c995f45bb1a3/download
9. https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/COMP/GF(2019)11/en/pdf
10. https://bhattandjoshiassociates.com/competition-act-2002-and-2023-amendments-a-comprehensive-overview-of-indias-competition-act-and-market-regulation/
11. https://nujslawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/vijay-kumar-singh.pdf
12. https://www.cfr.org/article/how-india-disrupts-and-navigates-wto
13. https://unctad.org/board-action/intergovernmental-group-experts-competition-law-and-policy