Law: Competition Act, 2010

Section: 4(1),4(2)(a)(c),4(2)(f),42(a)

(a) Competition Act (XIX of 2010)--- ----Ss. 4(1), 4(2)(a) & 4(2)(f)---Anti-competition---Determination---Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) filed complaint against All-Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) to have colluded with other government departments to block its advertisements in all newspapers and periodicals at a dispute over recovering payments---Validity---Rules, regulations and circulars issued by APNS were its decisions and member undertakings, having actual or probable effect of diminishing or preventing competition in relevant market---To operate in relevant market, advertising agencies had to procure APNS accreditation for several aspects---Process of accreditation devised by APNS, its unfettered decision to accept, defer or reject accreditation applications, allowing different credit terms for same business, putting of extraneous conditions of minimum amount of prior business and guarantee of future business as well as constraints imposed on placement of government business by non-accredited agencies among other things, were simply not functions of a trade association and such were devoid of any redeeming virtue---Such process of accreditation was anti-competitive in contravention of Ss. 4(2)(a), 4(2)(f) & 4(1) of Competition Act, 2010--- APNS failed to provide any economic justification or positive correlation between functions of an association and governing conduct of business viz pricing and credit evaluation that involved or effected members and other undertakings---Instead of encouraging members to handle their pricing activities on their own as a normal business conduct, APNS had created a de-facto price alliance between its member undertakings---Credit dispute was commercial/legal matter unquestionably could be accounted for by individual undertakings---No association should adopt a decision or set mechanism to do so---Such practice of APNS amounted to governing freedom of trading activities from advertising agencies and member publications and was anti-competitive in contravention of Ss. 4(2)(a) & 4(1) of Competition Act, 2010---Enabling APNS and its member publications to organize collusive/collective boycotts and place pressure on…

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