Parliamentary Committee on Finance has red flagged anti-competitive practices of big tech companies and has called for an ex-ante framework legislation and identification of players that can negatively influence competition, sources told CNBC TV18.

According to sources, the parliamentary committee has noted that as the digital markets are prone to significant anti-competitive behaviour by leading players, competitive behaviour needs to be evaluated ex ante before markets end up being monopolised.

Players capable of abusing position will be identified as Systemically Important Digital Platforms or SIDPs, the sources added. The Parliamentary committee has also recommended that anti steering and net neutrality provisions must be strongly enforced on SIDPs.

Also read: Big Tech officials to appear before Parliamentary panel on Tuesday

Further SIDPs must not use any data in competition which is not publically available. SIDPs should inform CCI of any M&A or concentration prior to implementation

Sources also mentioned that Parliamentary committee has identified ten anti competitive practices that Competition Law must address.

Jayant Sinha, Chairman Parliamentary Committee on Finance told CNBC-TV18 that and ex-ante framework is required to prevent winners from taking all tendencies in digital markets. He further added that CCI must carefully scrutinise actions of big tech companies to see competition is not choked-off. Ex-ante framework will require a system of forecasts & checking for compliance by those cos that meet those forecasts.

These are anti steering provisions, platform neutrality, bundling and tying, data usage, acquisitions and mergers, deep discounting, exclusive tie ups, search and ranking preferencing, restricting third party applications and advertising policies.

Cyber law expert, NS Nappinai told CNBC-TV18 national regulators should ensure that regulatory frameworks across countries are harmonised and there is no harm in drawing from existing legal framework. She further added that frameworks should not be blindly be copied they should be customised as per local requirements

In July, the panel had summoned top executives of several tech companies to discuss their market behaviour following allegations of unfair market practices.

Also read: Big Tech officials to appear before Parliamentary panel on Tuesday

Companies like Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Ola, Paytm, Swiggy and Zomato told the Parliament that Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook were unfairly promoting their platform operator's products, services or lines of business.

They also warned that Big Tech players are on the verge of becoming a duopoly.

These companies alleged that there is discrimination by the Big Tech companies in the application of terms of service which distorts competition.

The tech firms also sought clarity from search engines like Google on how businesses get top ratings and how certain search results are thrown up.

Also read: Anti-competitive practices: Apple, Google, Netflix, Amazon India execs meet Parliamentary panel

First Published:Dec 22, 2022 3:37 PM IST