This article was written by Advocate Puneet Bhasin, a cyber lawyer and founder of Cyberjure Consulting. Over to Puneet.

In the cyber age the traditional love marriages and arranged marriages are replaced by online affairs and digitally arranged marriages. Cyberspace has made getting into relationships pretty easy. There are online dating websites and online matrimonial websites, where you simply fill in your partner requirements and get a list of prospective compatible matches. Most of these are paid services. The advent of relationships through the internet has changed the structure, functioning and sustainability of relationships in India. Cyberspace brings with it many dangers like anonymity and lack of personal contact, both of which are key ingredients to healthy relationships in the real world.

There are many instances of fake or misrepresented Facebook/social media profiles and matrimonial profiles on online portals. Posting incorrect information on age, religion or marital status are the most common problems in online marriage portals, as is lying about salary. According to informal estimates by a few divorce lawyers in my circle, nearly half of marital break-ups involve partners who met online and about seven cases out of every 10 that are of marriages arranged through matrimonial websites.

A big reason for this is Cyber Personation, which is made very  easy with the advent of online portals for relationships. People can write anything on their virtual profiles without scrutiny.

In May 2012, two men were arrested in Madurai for cheating women on online matrimonial websites with the promise of marrying them. Most of their victims were well-educated and working in the IT sector, while some were even living abroad. Their modus operandi was that they would make a very good online matrimonial profile and after establishing contact as a prospective bridegroom, they used to befriend the girls through social networking chats and the mobile.

Further, they used the magic voice option on the mobile phone to pose as parents of the groom. After gaining their confidence, they used to demand money from the girls and asked them to deposit the cash in bank accounts. After collecting the money, they used to disconnect all communication with the girls and create new profiles to attract further victims. Apparently they even blackmailed a few victims by taking semi-nude photographs of them through a webcam while chatting, to extract money from the girls.

There are many cases where people realize that they are the victims of this cyber crime after they are already married to such fraudsters, when it turns out that the online matrimonial profiles of their spouse had completely fake details.

However, there is legal recourse for victims of such cheating.

Section 66-D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 provides for punishment for cheating by personation by using a computer resource. This legal provision reads as under:

“Whoever, by means for any communication device or computer resource cheats by personating, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to one lakh rupees.”

This provision envisages that if a person assumes the character or appearance which is not what he really is or passes oneself off as someone he really is not, especially with fraudulent intent, then the victim can file a complaint before the Adjudicating Officer under this provision. The victim can be awarded a fine of upto 1 lakh Rupees.

The Rules under the Information Technology Act provide that the Adjudicating Officer is required to hear and decide an application in 4 months, and the whole matter has to be decided in 6 months.

The online dating and matrimonial portals can also be held liable under the Information Technology Act as there are certain liabilities associated with “Intermediaries” under the Information Technology Act.

The Online Service Providers being “Intermediaries” can be held liable under Section 79 (3) (a) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 if:

“the intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced, whether by threats or promise or otherwise in the commission of the unlawful act.”

The matrimonial websites do promise suitable matches and keep emailing the same to the registered users, and also at times charge for specialized services of match making whereby they are presumed to have verified the credentials of the parties, thereby making them liable under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Also, along with action under the Information Technology Act, it is advisable to simultaneously file an FIR under Section 415, 416, 417, 419 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code. All these sections deal with cheating and cheating by personation.

If you are a victim of such a cyber crime, then there is legal recourse available under the Information Technology Act against the fraudster and the Intermediary. You can directly file a complaint before the Adjudicating Officer, Ministry of Information Technology, Information Technology Act, 2000. The format for the complaint is below, and is required to be on a plain paper and submitted along with the fees payable, which is calculated on the basis of damages claimed by way of compensation. You can file this complaint on your own, without a lawyer being involved – but it is advisable to take help of a lawyer in the trial stage at least.

The real face behind the fake profile can be traced through the IP address or bank account details used to make paid profiles online.

 Complaint Format

THE GAZETTE OF INDIA

EXTRAORDINARY

Part II

–

Section 3, Sub-Section (i)

MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY

(Department of Information Technology)

NOTIFICATION

New Delhi, 17th March, 2003

APPENDIX

PROFORMA FOR COMPLAINT TO ADJUDICATING OFFICER

UNDER INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT

–

2000

I  1. Name of the Complainant

2. E-mail address

3. Telephone No.

4. Address for correspondence

5. Digital Signature Certificate, if any

II  1. Name of the Respondent

2. E-mail address

3. Telephone No.

4. Address for correspondence

5. Digital Signature Certificate, if any

III  Damages claimed

Fee deposited

Demand Draft No.____________dated __________Branch_______

IV  Complaint under Section/Rule/Direction/Order etc.

V  Time of Contravention

VI Place of Contravention

VII Cause of action

VIII Brief facts of the case

(Signature of the Complainant)

The fees payable is determined in the following manner:

  Every complaint of a matter to the Adjudicating Officer shall be accompanied by Application fee of Rs. 50/- and fee towards damages claimed by way of compensation from the contraveners, payable by a bank draft drawn in favour of “Adjudicating Officer Information Technology Act” at Mumbai, Maharashtra, calculated on the basis on the rates provided below.

The Complaint along with the fees in case of jurisdiction being Mumbai, is required to be submitted to: Adjudicating Officer, c/o Directorate of Information Technology, 7th Floor, Mantralaya, Madam Cama Road, Hutatma Rajguru Chowk, Nariman Point, Mumbai – 400021

This article is written by Puneet Bhasin, founder of CyberJure and an advocate specializing in cyber law litigation.

A legal dilemma if not included in the Will

The concept of property has undergone plethora of changes, with the emergence of social networking platforms. The photos we share, the posts we make are our digital property. Every person now-a-days has a part of himself online, and the family and friends would want to preserve this legacy too after a person is no more. We have a lot of memories stored online which our loved ones would want to preserve. Digital assets also include music, films, email accounts and computer game characters.

In a very recent case of Toronto based Alison Atkins, the sixteen years old lost a long battle with colon disease. Her sister had a technician crack her password protected Mac Book Pro, as her family wanted to access her digital remains like her facebook, twitter, yahoo and hotmail accounts, which were her life line during her illness. Alison had pictures poems and messages written on these inline forums which her family wanted to preserve.

However, accessing Alison’s accounts without her authorization was an act of unauthorized access and punishable by law.

Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, it is a violation of Section 43(a) and Section 43(b) of the Act.

These provisions read as under:

Section 43: If any person without permission of the owner or any other person who is in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network,-

(a)  accesses or secures access to such computer, computer system or computer network

(b)  downloads, copies or extracts any data, computer data base information from such computer, computer system or computer network including information or data held or stored in any removable storage medium.

-shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected.

The unauthorized use of Alison’s passwords violated the website terms of use and provisions of cyber laws too. None of the service providers allowed the Atkins family to recover her passwords and access her accounts as that would amount to a violation of her privacy. The attempts of the Atkins family to recover the digital remains of their daughter fell apart as facebook and all the other service providers started to block them out.

The digital era adds a new complexity to the human test of dealing with death. Loved ones once may have memorialized the departed with private rituals and a notice in the newspaper. Today, as family and friends gather publicly to write and share photos online, the obituary may never be complete.

But families like the Atkinses can lose control of a process they feel is their right and obligation when the memories are stored online—encrypted, locked behind passwords, just beyond reach. One major cause is privacy law. Current laws, intended to protect the living, fail to address a separate question: Who should see or supervise our online legacy?

In 2009, Facebook began to allow family members to either delete or “memorialize” the accounts of the deceased. In a memorialized account, the people on a person’s existing friend list can still leave their comments and photos with the account of a dead person. But nobody has permission to log in or edit the account. However, this could also lead to cases of cyber defamation where there could be defamatory posts made, and the family is not authorized to delete or edit them.

The only solution to this is that digital legacy must be included in wills, and people should leave clear instructions about what should happen to their social media, online accounts and other digital assets after their death. If we make our wishes clear now as to whether we want our digital legacy to be closed down or preserved, it becomes much easier for loved ones to comply with our wishes.

Please leave a comment below if you want Puneet to write more often, and you can even suggest topics. Her LinkedIn profile is here.

 Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, 1999 is a law enacted by Maharashtra to combat organized crime and terrorism. Organized crime has emerged as a serious threat for the state and the society. It erodes national wealth and encourages social evils like illegal trade of narcotics, kidnapping, collection of protection money etc.  Criminals make a great use of wire and oral communications while commissioning of crime. The interception of such communications to obtain evidence against them was becoming necessary and if at all they were caught then police needed to have more powers to hold them back into custody. The legal framework, that is the penal and procedural laws and the adjudicatory system, are found to be rather inadequate to curb or control the menace of organized crime by the well financed and very organized mafia organizations. Therefore the government decided to enact special laws with stringent and deterrent provisions to control organized crime which led to creation law laws such as the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crimes Act.

What is organized crime?

Organized crime means any continuing unlawful activity by an individual, singly or jointly, either as a member of an organized crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate, by use of violence or threat of violence or intimidation or coercion, or other unlawful means, with the objective of gaining pecuniary benefits, or gaining undue economic or other advantage for himself or any person or promoting insurgency.[1]

Like the recent case of spot fixing, it is speculated that the money of underworld mafia is involved. According to the police the accused persons were acting on command of people like Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and Chota Shakeel who have a continuous past record of organized crimes, provisions of MCOCA have been invoked against the accused.[2]

What crimes come under M.C.O.C.A.?

1)      Committing offence of organized crime which results to death.

2)      Being a member of organized crime.

3)      Aiding or Abetting or knowingly facilitating the commission of organized crime or helping in preparation of such acts. For eg– Communicating or handing over documents, passing and publishing of information or documents which is helping in commission of organized crime.

4)      Giving shelter or concealing any member of organized crime.

5)      Holding or looking after any property derived or obtained from commission of organized crime or property in possession on behalf of organized crime.

There has to be a “continuing unlawful activity” by individual or a group neither as a member of an organized crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate. To consider an act a continuing there are conditions which needs to be fulfilled. Firstly, it has to be a cognizable offence punishable with imprisonment for three years or more.[3] Second, more than one charge-sheet must have been filed before a competent court within the preceding period of 10 years and the court must have taken cognizance of such offence. Due to the peculiarity of this law it is necessary to sustain the charges against at least one of the accused in order to sustain the charge of conspiracy against the remaining accused, who might have acted on his or her behalf.[4]

It was generally considered that assisting means helping with finances but the help does not necessarily means monetary but it could be ‘any’ kind of assistance to the criminals responsible or helping in commission of organized crime.[5]

How to decide whether M.C.O.C.A. has to be applied  instead of other laws-

(1)   M.C.O.C.A, generally, deals with prevention and control of criminal activity by organized crime syndicate or gangs within India. Its aim is to minimize the unlawful activities done by organized criminal groups.

(2)   Its emphasis is on crime and pecuniary benefits arising from it. Activities which benefit or favours monetarily but could extend up to insurgency. Generally, it is about the cases of spoken or written words or any other form of visual representation.

(3)   Unlawful activity as defined in M.C.O.C.A. need not be terrorist attack or insurgency.

(4)   It punishes for promoting insurgency but not insurgency per se.

This article was written by Advocate Puneet Bhasin, who is the founder of Cyberjure Legal Consulting.

Cyber space has certain distinct features like anonymity which make it a very dangerous arena. However, this sense of anonymity is not really true as every person and activity on the internet can be traced, but a layman does not have the knowledge to take recourse to the same when he is a victim of a cyber crime.Email scams are the most commonly committed cyber crimes in India. Gullible people fall prey to these scams which offer great monetary gains. An Email scam is a hoax distributed in an email form which is designed to deceive and defraud the email recipients for monetary gain.The most common types of Email scams are as follows:

1.      Dating Scam: This is a very charming scam that purports to tug at the strings of your heart but end of the day leaves your wallet empty. These scams originate from random chats on online dating or matrimonial portals where email ids are exchanged for further correspondence. Also in many cases there are emails soliciting for a date by a very beautiful and charming woman that are sent to all email ids that would seemingly belong to men. Responding to such emails lead to exchange of photographs and sharing of personal data along with flirting and building an emotional bond. However, it ends with the scammer being in severe need for money for treatment after an accident or to visit the online lover. However, once the money is transferred all correspondences from the scammers end cease. In many cases they are actually Nigerian men who purport to be beautiful women and solicit men for dates, and that’s why this is a type of Nigerian email scam.

2.    Phishing Emails: These emails are all over cyber space. They purport to have been sent by a Bank and have a link which directs you to a webpage which carries the logo and feel of the Bank’s website. They require the recipient to update his records immediately otherwise his accounts would be frozen. Most people panic on receiving such an email and enter their online banking passwords and sensitive data on the webpage. Thereafter, the scammers make unauthorized withdrawals from the victim’s bank accounts. The latest is an email from RBI which asks the recipient of the email to secure his bank account details with RBI, requiring him to mention all the banks in which he has his accounts along with the net banking details, credit card numbers including the secret three digit CVV number.

3.    Inheritance Scam: These emails mention that the name of the recipient matches that of the relative of a millionaire who has died intestate abroad. If a victim responds positively to this email, he will receive very genuine looking transfer documents for the property along with a bill for the legal fees that would have to be incurred for the transfer. Once the victim transfers the money, he will never hear from the scammer again.

4.    Lottery Scam: This is among the most common types of email scams, where a victim receives an email informing him that he has won a big lottery and he has to pay a certain amount of money as transaction costs to claim the prize money.

5.     Extortion scam: This is a very interesting type of email scam. In email scams, the scam emails are sent out to millions of people. These scam emails are threatening in nature and demand security money. They will typically say that I am watching you, and I know your wife and child also, if you don’t pay beware the consequences. The next email would mention that you think I am not serious, but I have been following you, you wore a white shirt and blue trousers today. Now in reality this is just a psychological play to create fear in the mind of the victim. If you just clearly think, then from all the men who receive that email many would have a wife and child, and most men wear white shirts and blue trousers. It’s a game of probability.

In 2012 a 32 year old man from Indore was arrested for allegedly duping a student from Kandivili of Rs. 1.2 Lakhs through an email lottery scam. The Mumbai Cyber Police cracked this case and apprehended the culprit.

If you are a victim of such a scam, then there is legal recourse under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Section 66-D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 provides for punishment for cheating by Personation by using a computer resource. This legal provision reads as under:

“Whoever, by means for any communication device or computer resource cheats by personating, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to One Lakh rupees.”

A victim can initiate legal action against such scammers. The first step would be filing a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell to trace the offenders and thereafter a Complaint should be filed with the Adjudicating Officer under the Information Technology Act, in order to initiate legal proceedings against the offenders. In many cases the offenders are Indian citizens only, who pretend to be foreign nationals in the emails.

Always remember, that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Never volunteer your credit card details, net banking details, PAN card numbers or any other sensitive personal data to any unknown person in cyber space however, credible it may appear to be.

It is always better to be safe in cyber space. However, if you are a victim of such scams, you do have legal recourse to recover your money.

[email protected]

www.cyberjure.com

This article is written by Puneet Bhasin, a cyber law expert from Mumbai. She regularly assists banks in dealing with Phishing scams and we asked her to share her experience, and she wrote this guest post for our blog. Over to Puneet.

Online banking revolutionized banking transactions, whereby money could be transferred at a single click. It has been a  time saver and has been an extremely convenient method to undertake commercial transactions. However, it has lead to a slew of litigation against banks. With online banking came phishing emails.

Phishing emails in these cases are those emails which purport to have been sent by the bank and have the look and feel of a legitimate email from a bank. They require the user to enter their username and password to reconfirm their accounts, invariably threatening that if such confirmation is not made immediately the account would be frozen. In many cases these emails are spoofed also whereby a third party sends an email using the email id of the bank, and this can be easily identified by reading the complete header of the email.

Many users panic on receiving such an email and immediately give out their personal sensitive data like banking passwords to third parties purporting to be representing the bank.  They realize that they have been duped only when money is drawn out by such third parties from their bank accounts.

There has been a slew of litigation against banks whereby, the victims of phishing scams file complaints against the banks under the Information Technology Act, 2000.  The grounds on which such complaints are filed is Section 43, Section 43A and Section 72 A pf the Information Technology Act.

Section 43 of the Information Technology Act deals with Unauthorised Access, and the Complainant in most cases alleges violation of Section 43 (a) which is accessing or securing access to a computer, computer system or computer network without permission of owner or person in charge. However, banks have a very strong legal defence to this because the unauthorised access is by a third party who sent the phishing email and not the bank. The banks on receipt of any information from a online banking services user that his account has been wrongfully debited, must ask him if he responded to any email asking for his password and must ask him to submit documentary proof of that email to the bank. If the user admits that he has replied to such phishing email, the bank must require him to submit a letter to the bank to that effect in order to enable the bank to freeze his account, whereby further unauthorised money transfer should not happen from his account.  The bank should intimate the user by an official letter to file a complaint with the cyber crime cell, and the bank should also file  an FIR against the beneficiary account holders in whose accounts the money has been unauthorisedly credited. This is important to prove the proactive efforts of the bank in a litigation by a victim against the bank under the Information Technology Act.

Section 72 A of the Information Technology Act reads as under:

“ Punishment for Disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract.- Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, any person including an intermediary who, while providing services under the terms of lawful contract, has secured access to any material containing personal information about another person, with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or wrongful gain discloses, without the consent of the person concerned, or in breach of a lawful contract, such material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with a fine which may extend to five lakh rupees, or with both.”

The main contention of the complainant would be that the bank has access to his password and misused it. However, as per RBI norms all banks have 128 bit encryption of passwords and the bank does not have any access to the same.

The Complainants in most cases attempt to bring the bank within the definition of an “Intermediary” under the Information Technology Act,; however, the exceptions to intermediary liability under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, apply to a bank in this case because of the following reasons:

1. the function of the bank  is limited to providing access to a communication system over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored.

2. the bank does not-

(i) initiate the transmission,

(ii) select the receiver of the transmission, and

(iii) select or modify the information contained in the transmission
(c) the bank observes due diligence while discharging his duties under this Act and also observes such other guidelines as the Central Government may prescribe in this behalf.

The banks are required to maintain ISO 27001 standards because they handle confidential and sensitive personal data of users of their services.

In brief, the banks need to undertake the following steps in order to be able to succeed in any litigation against them:

1. They should provide a handbook to the online banking services users at the time they apply for such services. The handbook should mention directions for safe use of online banking and should also contain complete information about phishing emails and scams, including information on how users can protect themselves from such phishing attacks.

2. The Online Banking Services Application should have an Indemnity clause, whereby the user indemnifies the bank.

3. The Terms and Conditions of Online Banking should contain Indemnity clauses with respect to password of the user, online transactions and use of bank’s services.

4. There should be a security tips page which warns users of phishing emails each time they log in for online banking.

5. There should be cyber security and cyber law compliance panel. This panel should comprise of cyber security experts who should ensure that proper cyber security measures are always in place and the cyber lawyer in the panel should ensure that the online banking user agreement clauses  are up-to-date to restrict the bank’s liability in an environment where new cyber crimes get added each day.

6. The online user should be made to agree to indemnify the bank with respect to his usage of his password and online banking transactions with each log in.

7. There should be a well drafted Privacy Policy whereby the bank’s liability is reduced to a negligible level.

8. The cyber security and cyber law compliance panel should send emails on a routine basis to all users of online banking about the latest cyber crimes and safe guard measures. This helps show the banks active role in prevention of cyber crimes and shows the bank in positive light in cyber crime litigation against the bank.

9. The Online Banking Services Agreement should have a well drafted Alternative Dispute Resolution Clause. This clause is very important as it helps preserve the image and reputation of a bank, which can get damaged when the bank is accused in such matters involving litigation.

10. The bank should actively follow-up the case investigation after filing the FIR.

In the current scenario most cases where the victim in phishing scams files a complaint against the bank manages to succeed in getting compensated for his losses.

These are a few guidelines which can help a Bank succeed in litigation faced by them due to phishing scams.

This article was written by Puneet Bhasin, a cyber law expert from Mumbai. She is a founder of Cyberjure and you can contact her on [email protected]

The article is written by Akansha Mehta.

There remains many more hindrance in the way of the Rs 2,060 crore Jet-Etihad Deal as despite getting a clearance from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) vide order dated 12/11/2013, three weeks later an appeal has been filed in the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) against the CCI’s decision. This post focuses on the composition of the deal and the reasoning given by the CCI while approving it.

According to the Government notification (S.O. 480E dated 04.03.2011) in case of an acquisition where one enterprise acquires the shares, voting rights or assets of another enterprise have either, in India, the assets of the value of more than INR 15 billion or turnover more than rupees 45 billion, or, in India or outside India, in aggregate, the assets of the value of more than USD 750 million, including at least INR 7.5 billion in India or worldwide turnover of more than USD 2.25 billion, including turnover of at least INR 22.5 billion (approx. USD 500 million) in India, such an acquisition shall be deemed to be a combination whose regulation shall be according to the Act.

The proposed combination in the case of Jet-Etihad relates to acquisition of 24% equity stake and certain other rights in Jet by Etihad. Etihad is a company incorporated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is the national airline of UAE. It is wholly-owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi and is primarily engaged in the business of international air passenger transportation services. While Jet is a listed company incorporated in 1992 under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956 and is primarily engaged in the business of providing low cost and full service scheduled air passenger transport services to/from India. The combined value of assets and turnover of the parties met the threshold requirements for the purpose of Section 5 of the Act and therefore their regulation were to be done according to the Competition Act, 2002.

The consequence of acquisition of 24% equity stake by Etihad shall be that it will have the power to nominate two out of six shareholder directors, including the Vice Chairman, in the Board of Directors of Jet which shall amount to be a significant participation in the managerial affairs of Jet. With a view to achieve the purported objective of enhancing their airline business through joint initiatives, the parties also entered into a Commercial Co-operation Agreement (CCA). Under the CCA, the parties agreed that- they would frame co-operative procedure in relation to (i) joint route and schedule coordination; (ii) joint pricing; (iii) joint marketing, distribution, sales representation and cooperation, Etihad would recommend candidates for the senior management of Jet.

It was observed by the CCI that the effect of these agreements including the governance structure envisaged in the CCA establishes Etihad’s joint control over Jet, more particularly over the assets and operations of Jet. In order to assess the effect of this control, the CCI primarily analysed the effect of the proposed combination on those services that were offered by both the parties.

The Acquirer (i.e. Etihad) is the national airline of Abu Dhabi, primarily offering international airline services to and from Abu Dhabi, and between other international destinations using Abu Dhabi airport as the transit hub. Whereas, Jet is a listed Indian company offering both domestic and international air transportation services. Jet is stated to offer services between different call points in India to 20 destinations abroad.  It was observed that Etihad will not be operating in Indian domestic air transportation services i.e. air transportation between two airports located within India. Therefore, the proposed combination is not likely to raise any competition concern in the said sector. In this context the Commission observed that the relevant market to assess the effect of the proposed combination is the market for international air passengers.

While assessing the impact of the proposed combination on the international air passengers CCI observed that India-UAE passenger traffic consists of approximately 3.5 million origin and destination passengers per year. Out of this, Jet has only 20 percent share and Etihad carries only 5 percent of the market. Jet and Etihad provide overlapping services in 9 nonstop markets between India and UAE. The market share of Jet and Etihad combined in all these nine nonstop markets is below 36% andthey face intense competition from other airlines serving the same routes. The Commission observed that Indian passengers flying to these destinations are fare sensitive therefore any tendency to raise fares by them on such routes will not be profitable for the airlines.

There are 38 routes to/from India to other destinations where Etihad and Jet fly and there is at least one competitor on the route. Of these, on only 7 routes Jet Etihad have a combined market share of greater than 50 percent. Of these 7 routes, on 3 routes either Jet or Etihad has a market share of less than 5 per cent. For instance, on the Bombay (BOM)-Brussels (BRU) route, Jet has a market share of 72.90% and Etihad has a market share of 3.30%. On the Ahmedabad (AMD)-BRU route Jet has a market share of 83.10% while Etihad has a market share of 2.61%. Thus, post transaction change in market share is marginal for the combined entity and the deal does not alter the competition dynamics.

Considering these facts and the assessing the other relevant factors as mentioned in Section 20(4) of the Act, the CCI stated that the proposed combination is not likely to have appreciable adverse effect on competition in India. An appeal has been filed in the COMPAT against this order of the CCI on the ground that the CCI failed to carry out an assessment of the appreciable adverse effect on competition and placed all passengers and indeed the entire airline industry into a grave risk of suffering irreparable damage and permanently eliminating competition. This appeal might have some standing as   through his minority order Member Anurag Goel also stated that the proposed combination is likely to cause an appreciable adverse effect on competition within the market of international air passenger transportation from and to India.

.