Competition / Antitrust

Khaitan’s Competition / Antitrust law team offers unrivalled expertise on competition law matters which is deeply rooted in strong understanding of the Indian business environment and pragmatic commercial considerations. The team’s formidable bench comprising 20+ dedicated practitioners, including 6 partners / executive directors are consistently ranked as the leading competition law practice and practitioners in India by legal directories such as Global Competition Review, Chambers & Partners, Who’s Who Legal, Legal 500, AsiaLaw and India Business Law Journal.
 

Our integrated pan-India team leverages its wide-ranging and multi-jurisdictional experience in competition laws across India, the United States of America, Ireland, and the European Union to provide holistic and committed assistance to clients in India and across the globe.

As one of the most experienced teams in Indian competition / antitrust enforcement matters, we are at the center of Indian competition law enforcement activity across sectors and the new-age economy. We regularly handle some of the most complex cartel, anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position cases. Over the years, with our involvement in arguably every important leniency matter in India, including several of them emanating from global cartels, we can take pride in our position as the “go to” trusted advisor on complex leniency matters.

Our result-oriented approach coupled with our thought leadership makes us a favorite with clients for competition law related work. We also effectively gauge and anticipate the priorities of the CCI in its inquiry and review processes, through curated sector-based expertise, to achieve effective results.

We also assist a diverse range of Indian and global clients in securing CCI’s approval for M&A transactions. Alongside securing merger clearances, we aid in preparing competition compliant transaction structures and documentation. Our expertise across sectors, key understanding of commercial needs, and strong knowledge of CCI’s processes and customs enable us to procure expedited and unconditional approvals in most transactions.

Our team has been consistently involved in securing clearances for a large number of complicated and marquee transactions including securing approvals for various Phase II investigations.

Apart from our general suite of competition law workstream, we combine our expertise in Indian and global competition laws to offer bespoke service / solutions such as:

a. Advising on complex cartel investigations often involving cross-border elements
b. Designing dawn raid programs and assisting in live scenarios
c. Advising on cutting-edge issues in tech and new-age markets
d. Advising on non-cartel agreements, joint venture related conduct, distribution issues, and intellectual property licensing issues
e. Handling Indian merger clearances in complex multi-jurisdictional merger control projects
f. Helping financial sponsors, private equity and minority investors in efficient deal structuring
g. Conducting trainings for competitively compliant behaviour
h. Providing assistance and guidance on commercial strategies and business models
i. Fending off hostile takeover attempts

The experience of our team combines expert anti-trust lawyers, ex-regulators, transaction lawyers and dispute resolution lawyers. These teams advise clients on a variety of matters including anti-trust dispute resolution, merger filings, leniency applications, compliance audits and dawn raids.

We work with clients to address issues such as gun-jumping and in merger control cases, and help them with solutions on regulatory litigation. Our teams also work with external specialised senior advocates of the Supreme Court as required. We bring a well-rounded perspective on competition law matters based on the diverse backgrounds of our team members and the depth of our experience.