Main features of the bill are:
- Under the new bill, mergers and acquisitions worth more than Rs 2,000 crore must be notified to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) provided the party being acquired has substantial business operations in India.
- The Bill reduces the overall time limit for assessment of composition from 210 days to 150 days.
- Now the Commission will have the power to appoint a Director General (DG) instead of the Central Government. However, the ministry clarified that such appointment requires prior approval of the central government.
- Other changes include broadening the scope of anti-competitive agreements to cover hub-and-spoke cartels, vendors, and the sale of goods and services.
- The Green Channel Route is an automated approval scheme that acts as a filter for certain types of merger transactions or Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2023 passed by both houses of Parliament combination filings that are devoid of any risk of harm to competing regimes.
- The Competition Commission of India (CCI) introduced a green channel in 2022 for automatic approval of combinations.
