Unfair business practices plaint against 4 rating companies dismissed

New Delhi: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Tuesday dismissed a complaint alleging that CRISIL, India Ratings and Research, CARE Ratings and ICRA indulged in unfair business practices. The ruling came on a complaint filed by Brickwork Ratings India.

The informant, Brickwork Ratings, alleged that the opposite parties — CRISIL, India Ratings and Research, CARE Ratings and ICRA — contravened the provisions of the Competition Act by means of collusive bidding and bid rigging, and also indulged in below cost predatory pricing.

Brickwork Ratings averred that the credit rating agencies are involved in anti-competitive practices in contravention of the provisions of the Competition Act which is causing an appreciable adverse effect on the competition in India as well as on the Indian economy, CCI said.


Brickwork Ratings asked the the Commission to order “investigation into formation of cartel and collusive bidding by the opposite parties in the tender processes of various PSUs for the period 2009 till date.”

It alleged that in a 2019-20 tender invited by the NHAI to rate its upcoming ₹75,000 crore bond issuances, the credit rating agencies cartelised and quoted identical/similar rates. As per the informant, the quotes clearly showed price parallelism between the opposite parties.