Trade association meetings: What you can and can’t do

Trade associations, industry organizations and conferences provide a platform for representatives from the same industry to meet and discuss common issues. However, such platforms could pose a risk from a competition perspective at times as they could turn into a forum for competitors to discuss and share commercially sensitive information and/or reach agreements relating to fixing prices, quantity and so on, which are prohibited under Indian competition law.

The precedents of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on the expected conduct of trade associations have been discussed previously in this column. In this issue, we briefly examine some risks associated with such platforms and provide guidance on the expected conduct from corporate representatives attending such events.

Functions and forbidden acts

As discussed previously, the CCI has observed that a trade association carries out many valuable and lawful functions which provide public benefit such as: (a) setting common technical standards for products or interfaces; (b) arranging education and training for potential entrants in the industry; (c) paying for, and encouraging, research into new techniques; and (d) developing a common response to changing government policy.

Amit Tambe is a partner at Trilegal and Gautam Chawla is a senior associate. Trilegal is a full-service law firm with offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.