India’s merger control thresholds often let acquisitions of MSMEs escape regulatory scrutiny, enabling “killer acquisitions” and market consolidation. This blog analyses these enforcement gaps, highlights international approaches from Germany, Austria, and the EU’s Article 22, and advocates adopting a “substantial business activities” test along with extended ex-post review to capture transactions with significant competitive or innovation potential.

This blog analyses the CCI’s 2025 Market Study on Artificial Intelligence and Competition, unpacking how data, compute power, and algorithms reshape market power. It examines merger control blind spots, risks of algorithmic collusion and discrimination, and the CCI’s push toward algorithmic accountability, situating India within the evolving global AI-competition framework.

Part II examines why conventional antitrust tools fail in concentrated markets where parallel, independent conduct causes long-term competitive harm. Using Indian case studies on duopolies, price wars, and exclusionary strategies, it argues that India’s refusal to recognise collective dominance leaves a statutory vacuum in oligopolistic markets that increasingly shape the economy.