Markets in Pieces
Arbitration, Competition Law, and the Quiet Erosion of Coherence, published by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
Created Apr 7, 2026
This piece was co-authored with Disha Joshi and published by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy on April 7, 2026. It was the winning entry at the NLUO Kautilya Society and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’s First Essay Writing Competition.
The piece argues that the central problem in arbitration and competition law is not arbitrability, but institutional coherence. When competition harms are adjudicated across uncoordinated fora, the result is fragmented outcomes that can quietly stabilise exclusionary conduct and delay market correction. Using India’s dual-jurisdiction model as a case study, we contend that arbitration is not merely a private dispute resolution mechanism but a form of market infrastructure, one whose decisions shape incentives, redistribute risk, and affect competitive conditions well beyond the parties to any given dispute. The answer, we argue, is not to bar arbitration from competition matters, but to build structured coordination between arbitral tribunals, the CCI, and courts.
“Competition law does not focus only on judging conduct. Competition law organises markets. It stabilises expectations, structures incentives, and shapes business strategies over time.”
“Markets lose coherence when competition harms receive fragmented treatment.”
“Public policy faces no threat from arbitration. Public policy faces risk from uncoordinated institutions shaping markets in isolation.”
The India section of the piece is what I am most proud of. The dual-jurisdiction model under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act and the Competition Act creates a situation where the same conduct can receive contradictory treatment, with an arbitral tribunal validating a contractual arrangement that the CCI might simultaneously be unwinding. Cases like Vidya Drolia and CCI v. Bharti Airtel illustrate how the judiciary has been careful to preserve both tracks, but without any mechanism for coherence between them. The gap is not doctrinal. It is institutional.
Our core argument is that the answer is not to ban arbitration from competition disputes, but to build coordination mechanisms: functional allocation between arbitrators and regulators, consistency safeguards on factual baselines, and courts acting as coherence checkpoints rather than appellate courts.