On Tuesday, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) dismissed complaints alleging that CRISIL Ltd, India Ratings and Research Pvt Ltd, CARE Ratings Ltd, and ICRA Ltd indulged in unfair business practices.The ruling was based on a complaint filed by Brickwork Ratings India Pvt Ltd.

 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 in an order.

Brickwork Ratings asked 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 National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to rate its upcoming Rs 75,000 crore bond issuances, the credit rating agencies cartelized and quoted identical/similar rates.

As per the informant, the quotes clearly showed price parallelism between the opposite parties. Brickwork Ratings also gathered information regarding tenders floated by various other public sector undertakings (PSUs) and alleged that the quotes of opposite parties evidenced bid-rigging amongst themselves, it said.

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