How the CCI’s AI Push Could Reshape India’s Antitrust Bar

After years of muted enforcement, the Competition Commission of India’s AI study offers the antitrust bar a new commercial frontier, prompting firms to build cross-disciplinary teams fluent in both code and competition. India’s competition bar has been in quiet flux. Enforcement by the Competition Commission of India ( CCI ) has slowed dramatically in the last few years, pushing firms toward merger control work that is routine, transactional, and low margin. The large penalties that once drove antitrust revenue and urgency have faded, leaving enforcement lawyers with little more than legacy cases and low-stakes filings. “The CCI’s call for AI self-audits and algorithmic transparency has made technical fluency a core compliance skill and will lead to retooling across the antitrust bar,” says Nisha Kaur Uberoi , head of antitrust at JSA Advocates & Solicitors. For example, she says, e-commerce companies integrating dynamic pricing should now look at competition compliance reviews by lawyers who understand algorithms before model deployment. Read more