Private super specialty
hospital's exclusive tie-up with a stem-cell bank for collection of stem-cells
from patients availing maternity services in the hospital and not allowing
other stem cell banks to collect the same, has no adverse effect on competition
Issue
Whether exclusive tie-up
of a super specialty hospital with a stem cell bank for collection of
stem-cells from patients availing maternity services in the hospital could be
said to be an anti-competitive Act?
The Competition Appellate tribunal held as
under-
1) In the instant case, the lower authorities
while pronouncing their judgments completely overlooked the fact that the exclusive
agreement entered into between the hospital and stem-cell bank did not, in any
manner, restrict the choice of the service provider in the relevant market,
i.e., market for stem cell banking.
2) By virtue of the agreement, though the hospital
was bound to avail stem cell banking services from the stem-cell bank but the
latter was free to enroll any patient(s) for such services to be availed in any
other hospitals, maternity homes etc.
3) That apart, there were 13 other players in the
market of stem cell banking and the patients were free to avail services of any
of these service providers according to their convenience and financial
capacity.
4) Hence, the agreement entered into with the stem
cell bank could not be said to be an anti-competitive agreement- DR. L.H. Hiranandani Hospital, Hill Side Avenue
v. Competition Commision of India [2015] 65 taxmann.com 65 (CAT - New
Delhi)
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