High Court quashes Abbott’s plea to stall CCI probe into alleged cartelisation

The Delhi High Court has quashed a petition by US drug maker Abbott that wanted to stall a probe by the Indian antitrust authorities into allegations of price cartelisation over a key diabetes drug.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru dismissed the petition on the grounds that there was no merit in the plea.

In an anonymous letter to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) a year ago, a whistleblower alleged that Abbott, along with Novartis, Emcure and USV, was controlling the price of the drug Vildagliptin. The letter alleged that there was an understanding to maintain the price of this drug across the country. Based on this, the CCI director general (DG) sent notices to the four drug makers, asking them for trade details of this drug in an attempt to find out if they colluded with each other to keep the price at certain levels. The CCI was also looking at the alleged involvement of senior executives from these companies over price fixing, people in the know told ET.

ET had reported in February 2016 that a whistle-blower had reached out to the drug pricing authority with these allegations.

Abbott, in its petition challenging the CCI move, said the email that the watchdog received was forged, and the data provided by the drug pricing regulator, which also received the whistle-blower complaint, were inaccurate.

In his order, Justice Bakhru cited the CCI’s views that the DG could employ appropriate tools to test the veracity of the email and the claim. On the data provided by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, the CCI informed the court that the fact that there had been a price increase was not rebutted although there may be some discrepancy between the dates on which such price increases were effectuated/implemented, the order noted.

“The CCI was of the view that since the allegation against the petitioner and other pharmaceutical companies was with regard to coordinated and concerted action, the same was required to be examined by the DG,” the judge said in the order, a copy of which ET has seen.