New Delhi: The antitrust regulator’s probe expanded to other areas after the government accused JK Tire Industries Ltd of bid rigging, according to sources and legal documents seen by Reuters.

According to court documents, the Haryana Competition Commission has accused JK Tires of unfair trade practices in supplying tires for public transport vehicles and the CCI ordered a probe last year.

Details of the incident and CCI’s preliminary evaluation are included9 in the monthly report. JK Tire 19 filed documents in state court challenging some of the regulator’s requirements. The documents accessed by Reuters have not been previously reported and the CCI’s current investigation into the cartel case has not been disclosed.

The documents show that Haryana quoted a high price and told the CCI that JK Tires was the only bidder involved in the tender. The regulator participated in the bid on November 11 last year. A monthly probe was ordered saying that other tire manufacturers were not involved in “bid rigging proposals”.

A JK Tire spokesperson declined to comment, saying “the matter is currently unresolved”. In August, the CCI decided to review the role of other tire companies and extended the review to Apollo Tires, CEAT and MRF, the Indian subsidiaries of France’s Michelin and Germany’s Continental, two people familiar with the matter said.

It is not clear whether the CCI has contacted these tire companies.

They declined to reveal their sources as the investigation is confidential. CCI along with the Haryana government did not respond to requests for comment. MRF, Michelin and Continental also did not respond to requests for assessment, while CEATT while Apollo declined to comment.

In case of collusive bidding, a fine of up to three times the company’s annual pricing profit or up to 10 percent of its annual sales can be imposed once found.

JK Tires, which has a market capitalization of $191 million, says it has a 30-36% market share in the market for different types of tire variants with an annual value of about $9 billion.

“Email Dump”

Haryana claimed that JK Tires was the only bidder in the 2018 tender, which was around 34% higher than the previous purchase price.

CCI in 2019 11 “There seems to be some degree of agreement or understanding among the tire manufacturers. There is a need for a thorough and detailed investigation into the matter to ascertain the entire modus operandi.”

As part of its investigation, the CCI said this year that it had asked some of the senior executives of the JK Group to provide a five-year “email dump”, which was important to the investigation.

The JK Tire Punjab and Haryana High Court challenged the request and said it was cooperating with the investigation and that the executives’ emails had no or limited relevance to the incident.

JK Tire said in its September 19 filing that the regulator’s investigation team acted “in a wholly unreasonable, arbitrary and ingenious manner.”

The court is scheduled to hear the case on October 28th.

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