Start-ups, news publishers likely to join digital competition law panel

The digital competition law committee in its first meeting held on Wednesday decided to widen the ambit of its discussions by bringing more stakeholders to the table. The corporate affairs ministry is expected to include some domestic start-ups and news publishers in the panel, a senior official said.

The meeting which lasted several hours, was chaired by Manoj Govil, secretary, ministry of corporate affairs. The additional members to the committee will be nominated by Govil.

Several start-ups and news publishers had raised the issue of their non-inclusion in the committee earlier and said the panel seemed to be dominated by corporate lawyers, many of them representing the Big Tech.

“The whole idea behind the law is to protect the startups and small businesses from abuse of dominance of the big tech. Their representation is very important,” an industry official said.

The 16-member panel includes chairperson, The Competition Commission of India, Saurabh Srivastava, chairman, Indian Angel Network and co-founder of industry body NASSCOM.

Among the law firms on the panel are Haigreve Khaitan of Khaitan & Co, Pallavi Shardul Shroff of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co, and Anand Pathak, P&A Law Offices.