CCI and Regulation of Digital Platforms and Blockchain: Will it take a Rule of Reason; Per Se or a Schizophrenic Approach?

India's choice to control its markets was executed in two stages: one for each phase of the country's industrial strategy and philosophy towards resource allocation and market functioning. Between 1950 and 1991, the first phase was defined by a socialist ideology exhibited via a mixed economy and a propensity for government engagement in economic activities. During this time, policymakers were more concerned with avoiding economic power concentration than with stimulating competition. As the Indian economy modernised policymakers moved from preventing concentration of economic power as symbolised by the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act (MRTP) of 1969 to the Competition Act 2002 ("Act"), to regulate anti-competitive agreements that have the potential to have a material adverse effect on competition in the Indian economy. In the modern Indian economy, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has shown inconsistency in its enforcement on platform dominance; this inconsistency may now extend to blockchain as well. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the necessity of new antitrust tools in the evolving economy of an emergent market and to push for more certainty in the CCI's enforcement of anti-competition laws in India. The increasing digitization of global and Indian markets in recent years, facilitated by the emergence of platforms such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook have raised questions about the Act's appropriateness and its applications. The CCI has received several complaints over the past few years about creative, technology-driven, two-sided marketplaces that have become a vital element of the Indian economy. In such situations, it becomes easier for certain platforms to practice deep discounting, cash-back offers and other schemes to constantly attract newer users. There is widespread agreement that CCI's reaction to these dynamic markets leaves much to be desired. Since technology has now evolved from the "platform" to "blockchain"; new challenges arise and it has also raised questions if the Act itself needs to be suitably updated to meet the challenges unique to these markets

Competition and Consumer Privacy in the Cyberspace Market

70-85This paper will examine legal and marketing implications of certain Internet technological developments impacting competition and consumer protection in cyberspace. The paper will explore to what extent antitrust and consumer protection laws are adequate to deal with the challenges to a competitive marketplace and consumer privacy posed by the development of cyberspace technologies and markets, for example, Internet search engines, social networks and wearable devices. The paper concludes that legal tools for protecting a competitive cyberspace marketplace are fairly robust, while the legal tools to protect consumers from being tracked and profiled by marketers and from the potential intrusions of individual privacy made possible by even more advanced Internet connected sensor and related data-based technologies are still a work in progress. At the same time, the extent of further government regulation in this area must be carefully balanced so as not to unduly restrict data dependent innovation

The effect of settlement regimes on trading cost and market efficiency: evidence from the National Stock Exchange

Using data from 65 of the most actively traded stocks from the National Stock Exchange of India we study the relationship between impact cost and three indicators of market efficiency under different settlement regimes. Our data is uniquely suited for this study because it encompasses a transition by the National Stock Exchange of India from fixed to rolling settlement. As a by-product of our study we are able to examine inefficiencies related to the day of the week on which trades are conducted for different settlement regimes. In summary our data reveals that rolling settlement reduces aggregate impact costs, leading to greater market efficiency. Employing a fixed effects model we show that impact cost has a stronger relationship to our indicators of market efficiency under rolling settlement. However, we find evidence of two structural inefficiencies related to the day-of-the-week on which trades are conducted: 1) under rolling settlement, trades conducted earlier in the week (and settled by Thursday) have lower impact costs, and 2) there is an impact cost premium for Friday trades.impact cost, day of the week, DOW, market efficiency, bid-ask,

An Economic Analysis of Libel Law

This paper examines the welfare implications of different libel law standards as applied to newspapers in publishing stories. Our work extends the current literature by permitting private and public incentives to deviate, giving rise to an agency problem, and by formulating a two-stage decision model based on a story's expected value. We show that the negligence standard provides incentives for the agent to take actions, merely to insure itself against liability. This results in a deadweight loss to society. We also show that both standards can be socially inefficient; however, correction using policy tools under strict liability places a lower informational burden on policy makers, than does the negligence standard. Eastern Economic Journal (2008) 34, 74–94. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eej.9050003