ABOUT THE COURSE:

Our economy is undergoing major changes as the government is looking at minimizing its interference in governing material resources. This leads to a reduction in bureaucratic hurdles in private businesses and public affairs, but at the same time also results in mushrooming of potential monopolists into the market which can cause wealth redistribution concerns. Economists, policy students and researchers along with their usual responsibilities would now require new skills and tools to navigate the regulatory landscape. 'Regulation' invokes different sentiments among different stakeholders of the economy ranging from infrastructure, banking and finance, energy, health, education etc. It, therefore, becomes incumbent upon policy-makers and professionals to understand regulation in the light of new political economy with growing innovations in sectors like digital markets, blockchain, space, cryptocurrency etc. In order to keep the balance between different stakeholders of the economy like state, enterprises, and consumers, regulation becomes a quintessential component that needs to be explored, fathomed and practised. The course is an endeavour to fulfil that mandate.

ABOUT THE ORGANISATION:

The Centre for Competition Law and Economics (CCLE) is a research organization working in the field of competition jurisprudence and economics seeking their advancement through research and other related activities. The Centre publishes research reports, academic articles, conducts training activities and assists litigating parties at different competition fora across the country to advocate consistent interpretation of the Indian competition law. The Centre regularly collaborates with Law Universities and other non-profit organizations to organize seminars, conferences and workshops for the relevant stakeholders to generate capacity in the said field based on mutual interest.

DETAILS OF THE COURSE:

The three-month online certificate course on Regulatory Governance and Competition Law is one of the programmes run by the Centre. The aim of the course is to train working professionals, governmental officials and other interested participants in the field of regulatory governance and competition law.

There is a total of 40 hours of classes spanned over a period of three months on weekends (Sat-Sun). In all, there would be 20 sessions of two hours each.

Some of the past faculties in the course include:

1. Rahul Singh, Associate Professor, NLSIU, Bangalore

2. Avaantika Kakkar, Partner (Head - Competition Law), Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas

3. Dr. Geeta Gouri, Ex-CCI Member

4. Ms. Arkaja Singh, Fellow, Centre for Policy Research

5. Dr. Ajay Shah, Economist

6. Dr. Abha Yadav, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs

7. Dr. Christian Bergqvist, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen

8. Dr. Versha Vahini, Professor, Manav Rachna University

9. Dr. G. R. Bhatia (Head – Competition Law), Luthra & Luthra

10. Deeksha Manchanda, Partner, Chandhiok & Mahajan

11. Mr. Rahul Goel, Partner, AnantLaw

12. Praveen Tripathi, Assistant Professor, Bennett University

There are, in total, nine units in the course. A brief description of each of the units is given below. The participants would be provided modules for each of the units.

1. Introduction to Liberlization, Privatization and Globalization Reforms (4 hours):

This unit provides a glimpse of the regulatory regime in the country post-independence till the advent of Liberalization reforms in the Indian Economy with a major focus on the changing nature of the former, post-reforms. The unit also delves into the concept of regulation and its necessity in any economy and the role of government as a regulator.

2. Sectoral Regulators (10 hours):

This unit deals with the theories and models of the regulation along with the judicial nature of regulatory authorities and the jurisprudence they are abided by. In the Indian context, participants will also learn about major sectoral regulators like RBI, SEBI, TRAI, CERC and IRDAI, their legal mandates and their administrative structure defined under the respective statutes from which these regulators originated. The unit also emphasizes on the impact of each regulator on the Indian economy through a case-study approach.

3. Indian Competition Commission (4 hours):

The designated Indian competition regulator is the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The Commission has largely four functions i.e. enforcement of anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominant position, Merger Control and undertaking competition advocacy. The Commission has both substantive and procedural powers to regulate the market players and prescribe structural and behavioural remedies to the contravening entities. Through this module, the participants would be taken through the genesis of CCI and its advent over the past 12 years in a global context.

4. International Regulatory Governance (4 hours):

Regulations are perceived differently across the globe. They can largely be classified as ex-ante and ex-post regulations. While the latter is majorly a discovered phenomenon where a designated authority imposes a certain form of sanctions on the contravening entities, the former undergo continuous deliberations in shape and form based on the sectors and other market forces at play. This is reflective even in the sector-based policies like equity markets, telecom, petroleum and natural gas, insurance and so on and so forth. This module seeks to take the participants through various trends in the current international regulatory architecture and other allied economic concerns.

5. International Competition Law (4 hours):

The genesis of the current Indian competition law majorly lies in the European Union (EU). The nature and structure of the current Indian legislation is very much drawn from the EU, even though the national competition authorities pay equal reliance on the US jurisprudence while deciding questions of law. Through this unit, the participants would be exposed to the substantive US antitrust and European competition law and its possible interfaces with the Indian law. The participants would also be exposed to various leniency programmes run in these jurisdictions like commitment and settlement scheme, amnesty programme et al.

6. Data Governance (4 hours):

Data is the new oil. The way this commodity is governed globally is undergoing a tectonic shift. There are renewed concerns like privacy and surveillance which have taken a centre stage for regulators and governments, more in the case of the digital economy. There are continuous attempts by various stakeholders to come to a consensus on how data should be governed globally, however, little success has been achieved so far. The participants would be exposed to various aspects of data governance in this module and identify key issues which the regulators need to work upon in the near future.

7. Challenges in the Current Regulatory Architecture (4 hours):

The aim of this unit is to highlight to the participants, the challenges of the existing regulatory architecture in the country. It provides a counterintuitive approach to study the regulatory bodies in the sense that the multitude of such bodies results in the problem of overlapping jurisdictions. Moreover, the unit also deals with the problem statement that how a plethora of such bodies can result in over-regulation and return of a supervisory and surveillance state.

8. Regulatory Reforms (4 hours):

In this dynamic world, the nature of the economy is continuously changing at a faster pace. India has come a long way from an agrarian economy to a service economy and now with the advancement in technology, new aspects in the form of social media, platform economy, tech economy is arising. We are witnessing several policy reforms in labour laws, environmental regulations, banking and financial sectors etc. This unit enquires about the reforms in the current regulatory architecture to accommodate these new changes in the economy and encourage participants to critically evaluate such regulatory reforms.

9. Workshop (2 hours):

The workshop will encourage participants to think on 'Way Forward' to the challenges highlighted in Unit 7 and also ponder on some of the unregulated sectors like space, defence and railways. The session would also encourage participants to come up with some ideas while working in groups on the regulations of more contentious sectors like surrogacy, cryptocurrency and privacy etc.

EVALUATION CRITERIA:

Unit-wise quiz – 7 quiz x 5 marks = 35 marks

Class participation = 15 marks

End-term assignment = 50 marks

TIMELINES:

Last date to register – 31st March, 2022

Start of classes – 15th April, 2022

Class duration – 15th April, 2022 – 15th July, 2022

End-term assignment – 22nd July, 2022

Evaluation of end-term assignment – 31st July, 2022

Certification of completion – 7th August, 2022

COURSE FEE:

The overall course fee for Indian nationals is INR 15,000/- (including registration fee of INR 1,000/-). Scholarships are available.

Link for registration is here

The brochure can be found here

For any further queries, please feel free to reach out to us at centrecomplaw@gmail.com. You can also call/Whatsapp us at +91 93116 83349, +91 70670 21640.