Tyre biz cartelisation: NCLAT asks CCI to pass fresh order; review fines to save domestic tyre industry

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 May 31, 2024

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The NCLAT Appellate Tribunal has directed the Competition Commission to pass a fresh order on the issue of alleged cartel of tire companies, citing the need to re-examine computational and careless errors and review penalties to save the domestic tire industry. After a series of appeals filed by tire manufacturers against the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) August 2018 ruling, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on December 1 The order was issued on the day.

CCI fined the tire company a total of over Rs 178.8 1 crore.

In a 166-page order, the tribunal remanded all cases to CCI for review and directed the regulator to “pass fresh orders after hearing the parties”.

The court also said that the regulator “should consider punitive measures to save the domestic industry” in view of the immense pressure on global tire manufacturers who have a lot of idle capacity.

NCLAT pointed to “unintentional errors” in the CCI order, but said arithmetic errors related to the order after the discovery of the cartel in “2011”-2012 could have led to erroneous results. Conclusion Among other flaws.

Justice Rakesh Kumar and Ashok Kumar Mishra NCLAT comprising of Judges The two Judges found that there was an error in the computation of the percentage increase in prices by the DG and that the revised data clearly showed that there was no price parallelism.

Director General (DG) is the CCI Department of Investigation. Department of Investigation.

“. Correlation coefficient is using wrong financial year 2009-13 instead of 2011-12 If the correlation coefficient is calculated correctly, it is found to be much lower. This also gives NCLAT Reason shows that it does not violate price parallelism.

The Tribunal ruled that the CCI must also consider the promotion of domestic industry as the purpose of competition law must also consider the economic development of the country.

He went on to say, “If a domestic firm commits corrupt practices, it must be penalized and given a chance to reform, not left in the lurch.”

The tribunal also noted that one of the Birla Tire has entered into corporate insolvency resolution.

The NCLAT order follows an appeal by Ceat, Apollo Tires, JK Tire, MRF, Birla Tires and the Automotive Tire Manufacturers Association (ATMA) against major tire manufacturers like CCI.

On August 31, 2018, the FTC passed an order penalizing tire manufacturers. However, till 2022, year 2 the SPC gave final approval after the order was issued to them.

CCI Soon after the end of passing the order of 2018 2022, the Madras High Court filed an appeal against the order, which was passed on January 6, 2022 On January 28, 2022, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal against the order.

About four years later, the CCI issued an order to the tire company, which then contacted NCLAT.

NCLAT ruled on December 1 that the regulator’s ruling against CEATT Nitish VP of marketing Bajaj He was fined for not being employed by CEAT for many years “in 2011”.

The statement said, “The cartel was found in 2011 years to 2012 that there were errors in the calculations, which, among other deficiencies, could lead to incorrect conclusions of the same. The CCI conducted an investigation based on the statement of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The work and references are based on the statement of All India Tyre Dealers Federation (AITDF).

The regulator found that the companies and associations were participating in a cartel by acting in concert to raise prices and to restrict and control the production of bias/diagonal tire deformations sold in alternative markets.

CCI Apollo Tires imposed a fine of Rs 425.53 lakhs, MRF Ltd a fine of Rs 622.09 lakhs, a fine of Rs 252.16 lakhs on CEATT Ltd, a fine of Rs 309.95 lakhs on JK Fines Tires and a fine of Rs 178.33 lakhs on Birla Tires. Their association ATMA was also fined Rs 84 lakh. Their association ATMA was also fined Rs 84 lakh.

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