Supreme Court Dismisses CCI's Appeal Against Delhi High Court Verdict Quashing Probe Against Ericsson & Monsanto

The Supreme Court recently dismissed the Special Leave Petitions filed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) challenging a Delhi High Court judgment which had quashed the CCI proceedings against Ericsson and Monsanto.

A bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Sandeep Mehta passed the order considering the Delhi High Court's observation that once a settlement had been reached between the informant and the person against whom the information was filed, the basis of the investigation was lost.

The Bench stated, “Taking into consideration the HC's observations and the fact that the original informants have nothing further to say in view of the settlement arrived at, we do not interfere with the impugned judgment.”

The Court, however, clarified that any questions of law involved in the litigation were kept open to be agitated in other appropriate proceedings.

The High Court had delivered the impugned judgment while dealing with appeals filed by Ericsson and Monsanto against CCI's investigations initiated on the basis of complaints by Micromax, Intex and iBall, among others.

The informants had alleged that Ericsson imposed unfair conditions for licensing certain standard essential patents (SEP) in the field of telecommunications, in violation of Sections 3 and 4 of the Competition Act. Similarly, Monsanto was alleged to have charged excessive royalties and failed to make its patents reasonably available, also said to be in violation of Sections 3 and 4.

The Delhi High Court, in its July 13, 2023 judgment, held that the Patents Act, particularly Chapter XVI introduced through the 2003 Amendment, provides a complete framework to govern issues such as unreasonable conditions in licensing agreements and abuse of patent rights.

It ruled that the Patents Act is a special statute and must prevail over the Competition Act, which is general legislation on anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position. It concluded that the CCI had no power to conduct the investigations.

Case no. – SLP(C) No. 25026/2023 and connected matters

Case Title – Competition Commission of India v. Monsanto Holdings Private Limited and connected matters

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Ericsson was represented by Senior Advocates Mr. Mukul Rohtagi, Mr. C S Vaidyanathan and Mr. Navin Pahwa, briefed by Singh & Singh Law Firm LLP [Mr. Ashutosh Kumar (Sr. Partner), Ms. Saya Choudhary Kapur (Sr. Partner), Mr. Devanshu Khanna (Partner), Mr. Vinod Chauhan (Principal Associate), Mr. Sajan Shankar Prasad (Principal Associate) and Ms. Radhika Pareva (Associate)]

Monsanto was represented by Senior Advocates Mr. Neeraj Kishan Kaul, Ms. Vibha Dutta Makhija, Mr. Raj Shekhar Rao, briefed by Advocates Mr. Adarsh Ramanujan, Mr. Ankur Saigal, Ms. S.lakshmi Iyer, Ms. Shruti Arora, Mr. Himanshu Saraswat, Mr. Parth Singh, Adv. Ms. Divyanshi Bansal and Ms. Ira Mahajan.

CCI was represented by Mr. N Venkataraman, A.S.G. Mr. Balbir Singh, Sr. Adv. Mr. Samar Bansal, Adv. Mr. Avinash Sharma, AOR Ms. Akanksha Kapoor, Adv. Mr. Jayender S. Chandail, Adv. Mr. Gaurav Kumar, Adv.