Saturday, June 6, 2015

'Walt Disney' didn't abuse its dominance by requiring release of its movies in India only via Digital Cinema platform


Where informant filed complaint against ‘Digital Cinema Initiatives’ and ‘Walt Disney Company India’ (‘Opposite Parties’) for releasing their movies in India only through Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) compliant servers and projectors and DCI compliant format was found to be better than non-DCI compliant format, Opposite parties s had not contravened sections 3 and 4 of Competition Act, 2002 (‘the Act’)

Facts:


a)The informant was a Digital Cinema Service provider. Its business mainly involved digital projection and screening of films in India through a specific technology known as its proprietary Sky Cinex Technology.

b)The informant filed complaint against opposite parties alleging that they had entered into an anti-competitive agreement amongst themselves to release their movies in India in digital form only through Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) compliant servers and projectors.

The Competition Commission of India held as under:

1)It was found that DCI compliant server was better than non-DCI compliant format, as far as quality and security were concerned

2)The Informant failed to show that the alleged conduct of opposite parties was likely to have appreciable adverse effect on the competition

3)Since no material was placed on record to infer anti-competitive agreement as envisaged under section 3 of the Act and the opposite parties were not dominant in the relevant market, no case of contravention of sections 3 and 4 of the Act was made out against them.– K SERA SERA DIGITAL CINEMA (P.) LTD. V. DIGITAL CINEMA INITIATIVES, LLC [2015] 57 TAXMANN.COM 443 (CCI)