Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Monday slapped a penalty of Rs 200 crore on Maruti Suzuki for restricting discounts offered by its dealers and directed the country's largest carmaker to cease and desist from indulging in unfair business practices.

 Passing an order, the fair trade regulator also flagged practices like appointing 'Mystery Shopping Agencies' and preparing 'Mystery Audit Reports' as part of enforcing the company's discount control policy. The CCI  imposed a fine of Rs 200 crore as it found that Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) indulged in anticompetitive conduct of Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) in the passenger vehicle segment by way of implementing discount control policy vis-avis dealers, an official release said.

MSIL had an agreement with its dealers whereby the dealers were restrained from offering discounts to the customers beyond those prescribed by it. In other words, the company had a discount control policy and dealers who wanted to offer additional discounts were required to compulsorily seek the company's prior approval, as per the regulator.

According to the CCI, any dealer found violating the policy was threatened with the imposition of penalty, not only upon the dealership but also upon its individual persons, including direct sales executive, regional manager and showroom manager. To enforce the discount control policy, the watchdog said the company appointed 'Mystery Shopping Agencies' (MSAs) who used to pose as customers to MSIL dealerships to find out if any additional discounts were being offered to customers.

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