by Vijaylakshmi
Swiggy has approached the Karnataka High Court asking for appropriate orders quashing the April 24, 2024 order and decision of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to give access to confidential information related to Swiggy’s business, which the company has shared as part of the Director General level investigation, with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) representatives.
Although the case was taken for preliminary hearing by the court of Justice MGS Kamal yesterday, the matter has been adjourned for a detailed hearing on May 23, 2024, tomorrow.
In its petition, Swiggy has pleaded for a restraining order from the court to CCI from directly making available the confidential information submitted to it over the course of the DGS investigation while considering a complaint by NRAI against anti-competitive practices by food aggregators like Swiggy and Zomato.
On the conclusion of the DGS investigation, the CCI vide its order dated April 24, 2024 had decided to allow inspection of the confidential records submitted by Swiggy by representatives of NRAI.
In its petition, Swiggy has observed that sharing confidential information with the NRAI is violative of the provisions of the Competition Act, 2002 as well as against the principles of natural justice and arbitrary. Therefore, asked for an order from the High court quashing the CCI order of April 24.
In case, the CCI has already shared the confidential information with NRAI representatives, in the petition, Swiggy has asked for directions to destroy all confidential information from their records.
As per the April 24 order by the CCI allowing access to the NRAI representatives to confidential information filed by the food aggregators, the commission had asked the association representatives to give an undertaking not to share this information with anyone else and to destroy the said confidential information once the CCI proceedings were over.
