No abuse of dominance by ‘Atos India’ as it wasn’t dominant in relevant market for unified communication: CCI

Case Details: Hexa Communications (P.) Ltd. v. Atos India (P.) Ltd. - [2022] 140 taxmann.com 586 (CCI)

Judiciary and Counsel Details

• • Ashok Kumar Gupta, Chairperson, Ms Sangeeta Verma & Bhagwant Singh Bishnoi, Member

Facts of the Case

In the instant case, the Opposite Party (OP) was an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that specialized in hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and cyber security services.

The Informant had alleged that OP in concert with its authorized channel partners, had indulged in anti-competitive practices whereby it restricted supply of its spares and provisions of after sales services of its products in open market leaving OP/its authorized channel partners as only viable source for supply and/or provision of products or services.

CCI Held

The Competition Commission of India held that the manufacturer had no legal obligation to warrant genuineness of products/services offered outside its distribution channel and any insistence that same be bought from its authorized distributors/partners in itself could not prima facie be considered abusive/exclusionary.

It was observed that the OP had not restricted sale of genuine spare parts to independent service providers or prohibited its consumers from taking support and services from independent service providers.

The Commission held that since products of OP namely enterprise communications platforms consisting of core telephony switch, which included hardware, software, and peripherals and end device like digital and internet protocol telephone were offered by many players like Google, Cisco, Avaya, Microsoft, IBM and BSNL, etc., and there appeared to be sufficient competition in market qua such products and services, OP could not considered to be in a position of dominance in the relevant market for unified communications and collaborations (UC) solutions in India.

Thus, there existed no prima facie case of contravention of any of provisions of either section 3 and/or section 4 against OP and matter was to be closed forthwith under section 26(2)