CCI junks abuse of dominance plea against LG Electronics

CCI

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has dismissed a plea by a Navi Mumbai-based firm accusing South Korean LG Electronics of abusing its dominant position in air conditioning technologies.

Perfect Infraengineers Limited, which repairs and sells air conditioners, moved the anti-trust body alleging that LG Electronics denied permission to Envirocare Ltd and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to install its Variable Refrigeration Flow (VRF) and hybrid thermal solar (HTS) on the company premises.

The company wanted LG Electronics, which is responsible for installing and upkeep of the ACs for the two companies, to give them the permission to maintain the ACs while allowing them to add HTS panels.

VRF technology and HTS panels are used in air conditioning. HTS solar panels claim to reduce an AC’s power consumption by 30 to 40 percent.

In its order on June 20, CCI said LG Electronics was not a dominant player in the VRF or Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) segments, as Daikin has been the market leader since 2020.

The presence of large number of players such as Voltas, Bluestar and Panasonic offered several options to the consumers and acted as a competitive constraint, the competition watchdog said.

Perfect Infraengineers alleged that LG denied Delhi Metro the permission despite it undertaking to indemnify the electronics giant if any of the spare parts were to get worn out or need repairs.

In its reply, LG said it was not a dominant player since its market share was 16 percent, while Daikin’s was 44 percent. It refused permission as the technology was not tested properly and wanted to avoid possible claims and liabilities from customers, the Korean firm said.

Perfect Infraengineers was a defaulter and was involved in litigation with it. It was filing petitions at different forums to settle personal score, it said.

While saying that Perfect Infraengineers was primarily aggrieved by LG’s refusal to grant permission for the installation and integration of is HTS panels with its VRF air conditioners, CCI concluded there was no abuse of dominance.

This is the first publicly accessible anti-trust order of CCI after Ravneet Kaur took over as the chairperson in May and the first anti-trust order by the CCI in seven months.