No cartel among tyre makers: CCI

In a major relief to major players in the tyre industry, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Tuesday said that it has not found any evidence of caretlisation among the tyre makers including Apollo tyres, MRF and Ceat.

"There no sufficient evidence to hold a violation by the tyre companies Apollo, MRF, JK Tyre, Birla, Ceat and the ATMA (Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association) of provisions of the Competition Act," the commission said in its order.

However, in a dissenting order, commission member R Prasad has said that the tyre manufacturers were involved in anti-competitive practices and suggested slapping on penalties on them.

In June 2010, after receiving complaints from All India Tyre Dealers' Federation (AITDF), the competition watchdog had asked the director general to probe the charges of cartelisation on five major domestic tyre makers — Apollo Tyres, MRF, Ceat, Birla Tyre and JK Tyre. The DG had found that tyre makers violated some provisions of the Competition Act.

The DG said that price parallelism existed amongst them which is a good measure to show that some kind of information sharing took place.

The CCI said that taking into consideration the Act and conduct of the firms, "It is safe to conclude that on a superficial basis the industry displays some characteristics of a cartel but there has been no substantive evidence of the existence of a cartel".

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