A hefty penalty imposed by the competition watchdog and its wider implications are a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs and unicorns.
Last week, the Competition Commission of India concluded its three-year-long investigation into the MakeMyTrip-OYO affair. In its order, the antitrust regulator asked MakeMyTrip and OYO to cough up Rs 223 crore and Rs 169 crore in penalties respectively. It is a sizeable amount, except that most CCI penalties don’t end up getting paid. The CCI has a recovery rate of about 1%, since most of its orders are challenged by aggrieved parties in higher courts, where they languish.
That said, the MakeMyTrip-OYO order is important because it goes into painstaking detail about how this combine brazenly thwarted competition. At the …
Ashish is the editor-in-chief of The Morning Context. One of the best-known business feature writers in India, he was selected for Germany’s Robert Bosch Stiftung Fellowship in 2012 and received the Mumbai Press Club RedInk certificate of recognition in 2015 for his story “Inside the Network 18 takeover”. Before joining The Morning Context, Ashish co-founded The Ken, where he was managing editor. His previous writing stints include Mint, Forbes India and The Economic Times.
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