Competition Law Enforcement in India (2020–2025): An Empirical Analysis of Institutional Efficacy, Procedural Delays, and the Impact of the 2023 Amendment Act

The enforcement of competition law in India has experienced a massive institutional and legislative change between the periods 2020-2025. The paper presents an in-depth empirical and doctrinal evaluation of the performance of the Competition Commission of India in enforcing the law with respect to the institutions efficacy, adjudication delays, and early effects of the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023. The research design is a mixed method, as it analyses 217 final orders of Competition Commission of India, which involved anti-competitive agreement and abuse of dominance, data concerning merger control, and 42 appellate decisions of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal. The quantitative methods, such as survival analysis and multivariate regression, are used to compare the investigation time and delay predictors, and the qualitative doctrinal analysis is used to determine how judicial acceptance of the 2023 amendments. The results indicate the existence of long-term systemic delays, the median investigation timelines are several times longer than required by law, slight changes in the rates of imposing sentences after the amendments, and little use of new settlement and commitment mechanisms. Although reforms in merger control have brought some efficiency improvements, enforcement performance remains characterized with institutional capacity limitation and compliance shortage. The research provides the first-of-its-type empirical data to the literature on antitrust enforcement in the emerging economies and provides policy relevant issues to enhance the competition governance in India.