Digital competition bill may reach House in monsoon session

The ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has accepted the suggestion from the Parliamentary standing committee on finance to bring a new law to police Big Tech and has started work in this area with the idea of tabling a bill in the monsoon session of Parliament, a person informed about the discussions in the government said.

- Gireesh Chandra Prasad

This will bring a new layer of a regulatory framework to ensure fair and competitive practices in the digital economy, in addition to the existing competition law. It seeks to check large digital-economy firms like search engine providers, e-commerce platforms and social networking sites from restraining the emergence and growth of alternative platforms by prescribing a set of dos and don'ts.

A new Digital Competition Act was proposed by the Parliamentary standing committee on finance led by BJP's Jayant Sinha last month and previously by the standing committee on commerce led by YSR Congress Party leader Vijayasai Reddy. The idea is to have a law similar to the Digital Markets Act that the EU introduced last year, given that the traditional anti-trust regulations are insufficient for the highly dynamic online marketplace.