From Boardrooms to Market Abuse: How Corporate Governance Shapes Antitrust Compliance
This article is written by Aashi Jain, pursuing B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) from Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab
This paper examines antitrust violations as corporate offences by linking India's Competition Act, 2002 with the Companies Act, 2013. It argues that anti-competitive conduct such as cartelisation, abuse of dominance, and collusion originates in internal corporate decision- making, making it a governance failure rather than purely external market misconduct. Drawing on Section 48 of the Competition Act and directors' fiduciary duties under Section 166 of the Companies Act, the study traces how vicarious and personal liability for officers operate alongside corporate accountability, citing cases like DLF v. CCI and Google LLC v. CCI. It also explores AI-driven pricing and algorithmic collusion, concluding with a proposal for a governance-based model of competition compliance.
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