Aggressive Drug Pricing in Indian Pharmaceutical Market: Exploitative Practice or Anti-Competitive Conduct

–Prerna Raturi

An abuse of dominant position transpires when an entity impairs the competition and drives out the competitors, by virtue of its position in the relevant market. Section 4(2)(a)(ii) prohibits such conduct by a dominant company which “directly or indirectly imposes unfair or discriminatory price in purchase or sale (including predatory price) of goods or services”. Alike Article 102 of TFEU, abuse of dominance under Section 4 includes both predatory and excessive pricing. Competition Commission of India (CCI) plays a chief role in establishing the legal framework regulating the competition in Indian markets and thus, is also responsible for preventing the excessive pricing that impedes the entry to a particular market or distorts the competition in it. Despite this, CCI has dealt with only few cases involving excessive pricing as one of the allegations. All the more so, there has not really been a specific case dealing individually with excessive pricing and that is why one cannot even find a judicial precedent guiding the firms while formulating their pricing policies.

This is even tougher to do in the pharmaceutical sector, which the authors seek to do here.