By Rahul Rai and Ravi Gangal
In March 2026, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) closed its proceedings against BookMyShow, rejecting claims of denial of market access due to a lack of actual market foreclosure. By demanding concrete proof rather than presuming competitive harm based on the structure of its arrangements with cinema owners, the CCI applies a rigorous evidentiary test. This shift towards an ‘effects-based’ analysis stems directly from the Supreme Court’s (SC) recent mandate in CCI v. Schott Glass (CA No. 5843 of 2014) (Schott Glass).
However, this jurisprudence’s foundational roots trace back to a dispute involving physical infrastructure. Revisiting the SC’s 2018 judgement in Competition Commission of India v. M/s Fast Way Transmission Pvt. Ltd. (Civil Appeal 7215 of 2014) (Fast Way) reveals that even before antitrust scrutiny focused on digital platforms, the SC paved the way for an interpretation that is flexible enough to account for digital business models. By reversing the Competition Appellate Tribunal’s narrow ruling that denial of market access can only occur between direct competitors (Fast Way v. CCI (Appeal No. 116 of 2012)), the SC restored the CCI’s view, establishing doctrinal foundations that extend far beyond physical infrastructure to likely shape the antitrust scrutiny of digital markets. Crucially, while affirming the violation, the SC did not penalise the cable operators, accepting their business justification.
The Fast Way Foundation and Two Unanswered Questions
The SC held that once dominance is established, the competitive relationship between the parties becomes irrelevant. An abuse of dominance inquiry must focus on the dominant entity’s use of its market power rather than whether it stands in relation to the harmed party. The phrase ‘in any manner‘ in Section 4(2)(c) carries wide import and cannot be confined to particular mechanisms of denial.
The CCI applies this interpretation in its 2022 orders against Google in Umar Javeed v. Google (Case No. 39 of 2018) (Android)and XYZ v. Alphabet (Case No. 07 of 2020) (Play Store), finding that the denial of market access occurred either through architectural restriction or contractual refusals. In Android,Google’s revenue sharing agreements (RSAs) offered mobile device manufacturers substantial revenue in exchange for exclusive preinstallation of its search services, effectively foreclosing rival search engines. The Play Store order adds a further dimension: Google’s exclusive billing system mandate and differential integration of Google Pay into a superior ‘intent flow’ for UPI transactions denied market access to rival payment processors through technical differentiation. Thus, the CCI used Fast Way to conclude that engineering interface friction to make market access commercially unviable is as actionable as an outright contractual ban.
However, the SC’s broad formulation in Fast Way leaves two critical questions unanswered for digital markets: first, where can this denial occur; and second, what evidentiary threshold is required to prove it.
As noted, the SC set aside the CCI’s penalty in Fast Way, hinting at the latter threshold question regarding objective commercial justifications. However, before the SC formally mandated a rigorous effects-based analysis, these two unresolved questions created significant complexity in the CCI’s digital market jurisprudence.
Answering the ‘Where’: The ‘relatedness’ guardrail to denial of market access claims
Despite the SC’s interpretation that denial of market access can take place ‘in any manner’, the CCI maintains a de facto ‘relatedness’ guardrail. In the Play Store order, the CCI relies on Fast Way and declares there is no legal requirement to precisely define a separate relevant market where the denial occurs. However, it highlights the tethered vertical ecosystem, noting that payment processors operate in a (related)downstream market. Thus, while seemingly freed from rigid secondary market definitions, the CCI’s application nevertheless remains anchored to vertically affected markets.
Answering the ‘Threshold’: The MMT-Go Inconsistency
The CCI’s decisional practice is not as clear about the second threshold question, i.e. how much denial is required. This creates a doctrinal inconsistency between Section 3(4) (which treats denial of market access as a consequence of a vertical restraint), and Section 4(2)(c) (which treats it as an instance of abuse of dominance). Internationally, the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) judgement in Oscar Bronner GmbH & Co. KG v. Mediaprint (C-7/97) (1998) (Bronner) establishes a deliberately high threshold to protect investment incentives. To constitute an abuse, the withheld facility must be indispensable, eliminating all downstream competition, and incapable of objective justification.
The CCI noticeably dilutes this strict threshold in FHRAI v. MakeMyTrip-GoIbibo (MMT-Go) and OYO (Case Nos. 14 of 2019) (MMT-OYO). The CCI holds that MMT-Go’s arrangement with OYO to delist hotel franchisors violated Section 3(4)(d) of the Competition Act as a ‘refusal to deal’. Although Section 3(4) requires proving Appreciable Adverse Effect on Competition (AAEC) through a ‘rule of reason’ analysis, the CCI finds a violation despite the evidence demonstrating that delisted franchisors successfully competed through other channels. The CCI concludes that denying access to merely an ‘important’ platform caused significant harm.
As a result, the CCI opts for a presumptive approach over actual proof of market foreclosure, i.e., choosing a standard of mere ‘importance’ rather than EU-style ‘indispensability’.
The International Standard: From Bronner to Android Auto
This evolution aligns with the ECJ’s judgement in Google LLC v. Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (Case C-233/23) (2025) (Android Auto), which substantially dilutes the Bronner test. Addressing Google’s refusal to allow an EV charging navigation app access to the Android Auto platform, the ECJ held that refusing interoperability can constitute abuse even if the platform is not ‘indispensable’ downstream. The strict Bronner test does not apply when a platform is built to host third-party applications rather than solely for internal use. The operative standard shifts to whether access makes the requesting application more attractive to consumers. Moreover, the dominant firm must work with the app developer to facilitate access (in this case through a technical template) within a reasonable time, unless it compromises security.
While Bronner asks if denial destroys competition to protect investments, Android Auto asks if withholding access restricts competition through friction and selective access, tailoring the legal standard to better suit digital gatekeepers.
Notably, in both Google cases, the NCLAT upheld Google’s monetary penalties but set aside key findings and remedial directions. In Play Store (Alphabet Inc. v. CCI (Competition Appeal (AT) No. 04 of 2023),the NCLAT partially upheld Google’s penalty but overturned the denial finding entirely, holding that Google’s conduct affected less than 1% of the payment ecosystem, and therefore, could not constitute denial of market access (contrasting sharply with the CCI’s presumptive approach in MMT-OYO). In Android (Google LLC v. CCI (Competition Appeal (AT) No. 01 of 2023), the NCLAT quashed the Play Services API access remedy, ruling that Google should retain control over its proprietary software as an incentive for Google to monetise, directly recalling Bronner‘s investment-protection philosophy. This is precisely the terrain Android Auto enters: the ECJ held that Bronner‘s indispensability threshold does not apply where a platform is built to host third-party applications, a description mapping directly onto Google’s Play Services APIs.
The Schott Glass Corrective: From Presumption to Proof
Ultimately, the CCI’s presumptive approach to foreclosure, even under Section 4(2)(c), was definitively recalibrated by the SC’s ruling in Schott Glass, which shifts Section 4 to a strict effects-based analysis. Two critical rules emerge from this decision: first, dominance is not a per se indicator of abuse and the CCI must provide empirical evidence of actual or likely market distortion; and second,conduct possessing a legitimate commercial or technical justification cannot be classified as abusive simply because it restricts a competitor, explicitly reviving the logic in Fast Way.
BookMyShow: A Welcome Shift to the Modern Standard in Practice
As highlighted above, the impact of the Schott Glass corrective is fully realised in the BookMyShow order. By favourably recognising objective justifications for exclusive arrangements and treating the continued growth of rival ticketing platforms as empirical evidence against foreclosure, the CCI departs from the presumptive approach seen in MMT-Go. The CCI also flagged that the DG had not sufficiently proved actual market foreclosure, confirming that dominance triggers heightened scrutiny but does not itself establish abuse.
The journey from Fast Way to Schott Glass marks a welcome shift. Fast Way gave the CCI the framework to address gatekeeper conduct, while the Google orders demonstrate how it may apply to digital markets. Both the Play Store and Android appeals currently before the SC – the SC’s rulings will determine how far this doctrine extends into proprietary digital infrastructure. Until then, following Schott Glass, the standard for denial of market access demands actual evidence of foreclosure and rigorous assessment of objective justifications as BookMyShow already confirms.
This standard arrives at a critical moment. The CCI’s October 2025 AI Market Study flags that the upstream AI stack (data, compute infrastructure, and foundational models) is controlled by multinational incumbents who could deny market access to downstream startups through insurmountable entry barriers or architectural self-preferencing. The IndiaMART v. OpenAI (IP – COM / 57 / 2025) proceedings before the Calcutta High Court, where the core allegation is that a generative AI gatekeeper could selectively exclude a platform from its search results, represents a modern iteration of the Fast Way cable denial: invisible, algorithmic, but economically consequential.
The primary lesson from the past half-decade of CCI’s digital jurisprudence is that as AI-driven access disputes reach the CCI, regulatory intervention cannot rest on assumptions of harm based merely on a gatekeeper’s importance. The framework demands a demonstrated nexus between related markets, a rigorous assessment of objective technical justifications, and concrete proof that the gatekeeper genuinely forecloses competition. The cable wire severed in Punjab in 2010 was physical and visible, its digital successors are less visible but as powerful. However, the legal framework to address this competitive harm, refined from Fast Way to BookMyShow, is now more equipped to recognise and respond than at any earlier point in the history of Indian competition law.
—Rahul Rai is a Partner and Ravi Gangal is a Counsel, Axiom5 Law Chambers LLP. The views are personal.
The post Gatekeepers Old and New: The Enduring Doctrine of Denial of Market Access appeared first on India Legal.