NCLAT Allows Meru To Withdraw Appeal Against CCI's Closure Of Antitrust Complaint Against Ola, Uber

“It is submitted the appellant since a long time has been struggling with severe impact on its operations and revenues which has impacted its ability to continue with the litigation and hence it is not viable for the appellant to continue with the same any longer and as such the Management of the appellant has decided to withdraw the appeal.”

Meru had challenged the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) order closing its complaint before the NCLAT. The appeal remained pending for several years.

During this period, Meru's operations and revenues were reportedly hit. The company subsequently informed the tribunal that it was no longer in a position to continue the litigation and sought permission to withdraw the appeal unconditionally. As Ola, Uber and the other respondents raised no objection, the tribunal allowed the application and dismissed the appeal as withdrawn.

In its complaint, Meru alleged that Ola and Uber had leveraged their deep financial resources to enter into agreements with drivers and roll out incentive schemes that foreclosed competition.

It contended that unrealistic driver incentives, discounts offered to riders, and schemes such as Ola's Minimum Business Guarantee locked drivers into their platforms, making the practices anti-competitive. Meru further claimed that these incentive policies lacked a genuine business rationale and were designed to ensure drivers remained loyal to the companies' networks.

Meru also submitted that the companies had spent nearly ₹1,630 crore on driver incentives. It pointed out that Ola had incurred losses of about ₹2,311 crore during the same period. According to Meru, Ola was able to sustain these losses because of repeated funding infusions, which enabled it to continue predatory pricing. It argued that these practices had adversely affected Meru's business.

The CCI rejected the allegations. It held that the incentives offered to drivers were voluntary and did not amount to exclusive arrangements, as drivers were free to "multi-home" by working with multiple ride-hailing platforms. The regulator also observed that the Competition Act recognises dominance by a single enterprise or a group, and not collective dominance by independent competitors.

For Appellants: Advocates Udayan Jain, Abir Ray, Kajal Sharma, Vivek Pandey, Ranjan Mishra, Sasthibrata Panda, Harsh J and Biyanka Bhaba

For Respondents: Advocates Nisha Kaur Uberoi, Sarthak Pande, Akrathi Shetty and Rohan Bhargava

Advocates Samar Bansal, Rohan Arora, Aman Singh Sethi, Shivek Endlaw and Saachi Keile, for R3-5.