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The High Court of Bombay validated the arbitral award which allowed the monetary claims of a company named, Mahyco Monsanto Biotech Ltd. (MMB) which deals with the business related to agriculture. The case was filed by the Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd. and its associates firms against the Mahyco Biotech Ltd. for the issues relating to Sub Licensing Agreement concerned with use of Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) Cotton seeds.
The company Nuziveedu and its associates challenged the arbitral award passed in January, 2019 by stating that the arbitral tribunal should not have delivered such a decision when the SLA was being scrutinize by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) as whether the agreement was of anti-competitive nature or not. They also challenged the decision of the tribunal passed in the year of 2017.
The Bombay High Court bench of Justice R D Dhanuka stated that hegemony or the jurisdiction of the tribunal and CCI were not overlapping with each other, regarding the issues raised by the petitioners under the Sales Licensing Agreement.
The bench stated that the Arbitral tribunal in the aforementioned case only allowed the claims of the monetary nature put forth by the respondents, by enforcing the contractual obligations as claims of this nature cannot be examined by the CCI.
The Bombay High Court held that according to the Competition Act, the jurisdiction of CCI, and the jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal do not coincide with each other. The court further observed that the Arbitral tribunal was only adjudicating on the contractual disputes between the parties, concerned with the underlying contract, SLA. The issues which were before the CCI were distinct with that of the Arbitral Tribunal as the issues with the CCI were of the nature of violation of the competition act.
The bench also observed that the clause contained in Section 61 of the Competition Act cannot be activated in this matter as the disputes before the Arbitral Tribunal and CCI in the aforementioned matter were different from each other.
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