COMPETITION LAW

India’s antitrust landscape has entered a more assertive phase in FY 2025–26, with the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) significantly sharpening its enforcement approach. For multinational companies, this shift has direct implications for legal risk management and internal governance. A key development is the CCI’s increasing reliance on an “effects-based” framework when assessing abuse of dominance.

The AI Summit concluded as a resounding success, with discussions spanning a wide range of themes, including governance, competition, innovation, infrastructure, and trust. Across multiple sessions, the conversations reflected both the opportunities and the structural challenges shaping the AI ecosystem. The final day of the Summit brought together several cross‑cutting considerations that synthesized these discussions and highlighted key issues for policymakers, industry, an

Day 2 kicked off with the same electricity and momentum as Day 1 — and rightly so. We’re living through one of those rare moments in history when a technology doesn’t just evolve, it reshapes everything. Electricity did that. The internet did that. And now, AI is doing it again — only faster, louder, and with a ripple effect that’s touching every industry, every job, and every nation at once.

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi marked a quiet yet consequential inflection point. For the first time, a global AI summit shifted to the Global South, signalling not just a geographic move but a rebalancing of participation, scrutiny, and imagination about AI’s future.

In a significant development shaping competition enforcement in India, the Supreme Court recently delivered a detailed ruling in the case of CCI v. Schott Glass India Pvt. Ltd. This ruling solidifies the effects analysis principle within the framework of the Competition Act. It emphasizes the importance of a demonstrable objective justification in balancing commercial rationale with proven harm.

In 2024, the Indian antitrust regulator (CCI) had taken proactive stance on safeguarding market competition, issuing 11 prima facie orders and imposing penalties of INR 213.14 crore in total. Key developments include judicial recognition of private settlements, though legislative clarity is still awaited.