Friction #2: Can CCI do what the market couldn’t?

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Editor's note: Around 2008, global prices of nickel and zinc started going up sharply. For the leading Indian dry cell battery manufacturers, Eveready Industries India Ltd, Indo National Ltd (Nippo) and Panasonic Energy India Co. Ltd, this meant a spike in input costs. Following a series of meetings, key executives from the companies decided to hike prices in tandem. In order to give the appearance it wasn’t a concerted action it was decided that Eveready, the market leader, would make a disclosure about the price hike to the stock exchange, which would be the cue for the other two companies to follow suit.  It would have passed unnoticed had it not been for Panasonic’s parent company realizing that the move was in contravention of competition law. Subsequently, the company made a disclosure to the competition regulator which started investigations including search and seize raids on the premises of all three companies. By this time, Eveready and Nippo had also approached the Competition Commission of India or CCI as lesser penalty applicants. After looking into the charges, CCI concluded that the three battery …