Cartelisation amongst HP India and its resellers in the sale and supply of Personal System Products in India

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COMPETITION COMMISSION OF INDIA Suo Moto Case No. 07 of 2020 In Re: Cartelisation amongst HP India and its resellers in the sale and Against: HP India Sales Private Limited Tower D, Third Floor, Building No. 2, Cyber Green, DLF Phase – III, Gurugram, Haryana.

Opposite Party No. 1

Delphi Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd M D- 41 Eldeco Mansionz, Sohna Road, Sector – 48, Village- Fajilpur Jharsa, Islampur(97), Gurgaon, Haryana – 122018.

Opposite Party No. 2

Comnet Vision (I) Pvt. Ltd. Flat No. 706, Vishal Bhawan, 95, Nehru Place, New Delhi- 110019.

Opposite Party No. 3

Digitech Computers G-1, Amar Plaza, 45, C Main Hasanpur Road, IP Extension, Patparganj, New Delhi – 110092.

Opposite Party No. 4

Softlabs Solution 304, Skyline House, 85, Nehru Place, New Delhi- 110019.

Opposite Party No. 5

Orbit Techsol India Pvt. Ltd

A-8, FIEE, Okhla Phase-II, New Delhi- 110020.

Opposite Party No. 6 supply of Personal System Products in India

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Thoughtsol Infotech Pvt. Ltd. F-12, First floor, Kalkaji, New Delhi- 110019.

Opposite Party No. 7

Hind Technocare C-15, Atrium floor, The Surya Hotel, New Friends Colony, New Delhi-110025.

Opposite Party No. 8

Intensity Global Technologies Pvt Ltd. 408, Red Rose, Nehru Place, New Delhi- 110019.

Opposite Party No. 9

M Integraph System Pvt. Ltd. A-99, DDA Shed, First Floor, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II, New Delhi- 110019.

Opposite Party No. 10

Krishna Computer 731, Dhiman Lane, Jagadhri Road, Yamuna Nagar, Haryana – 135001.

Opposite Party No. 11

CORAM Ms. Ravneet Kaur Chairperson

Mr. Anil Agrawal Member

Ms. Sweta Kakkad Member

Mr. Deepak Anurag Member

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Appearances during the hearings: For OP-1 Mr. Karan S. Chandhiok, Advocate Ms. Modulika Bose, Advocate Mr. Uday Bali, Advocate Mr. Shourya Mitra, Advocate Ms. Riddhika Dumane, Advocate Mr. Rajeev Nair, General Counsel, HP India Ms. Niyati Ojha, Legal Counsel, HP India

For OP-2 Mr. Arjun Krishnan, Advocate Mr. Ankur Singh, Advocate Ms. Pritha Banerjee, Advocate Mr. Abhijeet Singh, Advocate

For OP-3 and its individual Mr. Vijay Pujari, Advocate Ms. Kajal Sonkar, Advocate Mr. Susheel Mahajan, Advocate Ms. C. Haritha, Advocate

For OP-4 Ms. Shalu Kapoor, Sole proprietor

For OP-5 Mr. Suman Raj, Advocate Mr. Praveen Kumar, Advocate

For OP-6 and its individuals Mr. Avdhesh Bairwa, Advocate Mr. Kartik Nayar, Advocate Mr. Saurav Kakroda, Advocate Mr. Divyansh Rai, Advocate Mr. Anshul Jain, Advocate

For OP-7 and its individuals Mr. Vaibhav Gaggar, Senior Advocate Mr. Abhishek Nair, Advocate Mr. Aniket Ghosh. Advocate Mr. Sarthak Miglani, Advocate

For OP-8 Mr. Sanjay Rajput, Sole Proprietor

For OP-9 and its individual Mr. Gopal Jain, Senior Counsel Ms. Diksha Khullar, Advocate Ms. Swati Sharma, Advocate Mr. Shashank Gautam, Advocate Ms. Sreemoyee Deb, Advocate Mr. Aditya Narain Kakkar, Company representative

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For OP-10 and its individual Mr. M. M. Sharma, Advocate Mr. Ankit Singh Rajput, Advocate Mr. Rupesh Ratish, Manager

For OP-11 Mr. Pawan Dadhich, Sole Proprietor

Order under Section 27 of the Competition Act, 2002

1. The present case pertains to cartelisation amongst HP India Sales Private Limited (‘HP India’/‘OP-1’) and its resellers viz. Delphi Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd. (‘OP-2’/ ‘Delphi’), Comnet Vision (I) Pvt. Ltd. (‘OP-3’/‘Comnet’), Digitech Computers (‘OP-4’/ ‘Digitech), Softlabs Solution (‘OP-5’), Orbit Techsol India Pvt. Ltd. (‘OP- 6’/ ‘Orbit’), Thoughtsol Infotech Pvt. Ltd. (‘OP-7’/‘Thoughtsol’), Hind Technocare (‘OP-8’), Intensity Global Technologies Pvt Ltd. (‘OP-9’/‘IGTPL’), M Integraph System Pvt. Ltd. (‘OP-10’/ ‘M Integraph’) and Krishna Computer (‘OP-11’) in the sale and supply of personal system products laptops, desktops, workstations, thin clients, notebooks, mobility devices, retail Point of Sale systems etc. as well as related software and accessories such as monitors, keyboards, mouse and docks (‘Personal Systems Products’), to the commercial and retail customers in India. OP-2 to OP-11 are collectively referred to as reseller OP(s) for ease of reference.

2. This case is one among the two cases initiated on the basis of an application received by the Commission under the provisions of Section 46 of the Competition Act, 2002 (‘Act’) read with the erstwhile Competition Commission of India (Lesser Penalty) Regulations, 2009 (‘LPR, 2009’), from HP India. Based upon the said application, the Commission, forming an opinion that a prima facie case of contravention of the provisions of Section 3 of the Act is made out, passed an order dated 17.11.2020 under Section 26 (1) of the Act and directed the Director General (‘DG’) to cause an investigation into the matter with respect to all tenders floated on the Government e Marketplace (‘GeM’) platform by the procurers in Delhi for Personal System Products, the value of which exceeds ₹1 crore. During the pendency of investigation before the DG, Mr. Manoj Grover, a former official of HP India had also approached

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the Commission by filing an application under the provisions of Section 46 of the Act read with the LPR, 2009 on 24.08.2021. Thereafter, on 19.05.2022, Delphi (OP- 2) also approached the Commission with an application under the provisions of Section 46 of the Act. The Commission notes that though Mr. Manoj Grover, an ex-official of OP-1, filed a separate application during the pendency of investigation, he is also covered in the lesser penalty application which was filed by HP India on behalf of itself and its individuals. The Commission further observes that the DG has not found Mr. Grover to have acted in contravention of the provisions of the Act in the present matter. Accordingly, the Commission deems it appropriate to move Mr. Manoj Grover up in the priority status along with that of OP-1 and consequently, OP-2, also moves up to second marker in priority status.

3. The DG, after detailed investigation, had submitted its report in confidential and non-confidential version, on 26.03.2023 along with the records. The Commission considered the same in its ordinary meeting held on 15.11.2023 and inter alia, referred the matter back to the DG to cause further investigation in terms of Section 26(3A) of the Act.

4. In pursuance of the aforesaid directions of the Commission, the DG carried out supplementary investigation and submitted a supplementary (consolidated) investigation report (‘Investigation Report’), in confidential and non-confidential version, along with the records, on 06.03.2024.

5. The DG analysed 60 tenders floated on GeM out of which 41 met the criteria set out in the prima facie order i.e. Delhi based tender of value of 1 crore or more for procurement of Personal Systems Products. Out of 41, 30 tenders were shortlisted in which both HP India and its resellers, or HP resellers participated (excluding those in which only HP India or resellers for other OEMs participated). Out of these, the DG found incriminating emails in relation to 7 GeM tenders which established collusion among HP India and its resellers in contravention of Section 3(3) of the Act. The details of these 7 tenders are as under:

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Table 1: Details of seven tenders in which the OPs colluded as per Investigation Report SI. No. Tender No. Tender Issued by Tender/Bid Value in Rs. List of colluding OPs and L- 1

Delphi Infoslutions Pvt. Ltd.

Thoughtsol Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

L-1 Corporate Infotech P Ltd (Acer)

Obit Techsol

Throughtsol Infotech

Intensity Global

Krishna Computer

DigiTech Computer

HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd. (L-

1. Thoughtsol

M Intergraph

HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd. (L-

1. Comnet Vision

L-1 Hitachi System Pvt Ltd (Acer) Hind Technocare

Krishna Computers

Softlabs Solutions

Digitech Computers

HP India (L-1) Softlabs

Krishna Computers

Hind Technocare

HP India

L-1 Sun Systems (Dell) M Intergraph Systems Private Limited (L-1)

HP India

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6. The DG found that in these 7 tenders, HP India emerged as L-1 in 3 tenders, and one of its reseller, M Intergraph (OP-10) emerged as L-1 in one tender, and resellers of other OEMs namely Acer and Dell won two and one tender respectively. The DG, based on emails exchanged between HP India and its resellers, and statements of their officials, found HP India and its 10 resellers named above in the cause title to have acted in contravention of provisions of Section 3(3)(d) read with Section 3(1) of the Act. The DG also identified 20 individuals i.e. 10 individuals of HP India, 3 individuals of Orbit (OP-6), 2 individuals each of Delphi (OP-2) and Thoughtsol (OP-7), 1 individual each of Comnet (OP-3), IGTPL (OP-9) and M Integraph (OP-10), in terms of the provisions of Section 48 of the Act. In pursuance of the directions of the Commission vide order dated 15.11.2023, the DG also examined other 28 resellers, but could not find any evidence to establish their involvement in the anti-competitive conduct.

7. The Commission considered the Investigation Report and vide order dated 03.05.2024, directed the Secretary to forward a copy of the non-confidential version (‘NCV’) of the Investigation Report to the 11 OPs and their 20 respective individuals who had been identified by the DG in terms of the provisions of Section 48 of the Act, through the companies’ counsel, giving the OPs and the individuals an opportunity to file their respective objections/ suggestions, if any, to the Investigation Report.

8. The Commission also directed the OPs to file their duly audited financial statements including balance sheets and profit and loss accounts for the Financial Years (‘FYs’) 2016-17 to 2022-23 along with details of turnover/ revenue generated from the sale of Personal System Products (‘relevant turnover’) by way of certificate from Statutory Auditor, or in his absence, from a Chartered Accountant, along with requisite affidavit, in terms of Competition Commission of India (Determination of Turnover or Income) Regulations, 2024 (‘Turnover Regulations’) and the Competition Commission of India (Determination of Monetary Penalty) Guidelines, 2024 (‘Penalty Guidelines’). The OPs were also directed to serve a

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copy of the order along with a copy of the Investigation Report to their respective individuals who have been identified by the DG to have acted on their behalf for the purposes of Section 48 of the Act under intimation to the Commission, and these individuals were required to file their income details including Income Tax Returns (‘ITRs’) for the FYs 2016-17 to 2022-23, in terms of Turnover Regulations and Penalty Guidelines.

9. Thereafter, the parties filed various applications pertaining to formation of confidentiality ring, extension of time for filing financial information and objection/suggestions to the Investigation Report, extension of time for serving the order dated 03.05.2024 upon the individuals etc., which were duly considered and disposed of by the Commission from time to time.

10. On request of the parties, the Commission formed a confidentiality ring in the matter and allowed the parties access to the confidential version of the Investigation Report, vide order dated 28.08.2024 subject to filing of undertakings and in terms of erstwhile Regulation 35 of the Competition Commission of India (General) Regulations, 2009 (hereinafter, ‘General Regulations’, replaced by Regulation 36 of General Regulations 2024). HP India (OP-1), Delphi (OP-2), Comnet (OP-3), Orbit (OP-6), Thoughtsol (OP-7), IGTPL (OP-9) and M Integraph (OP-10), along with their respective individuals (except of HP India) formed part of the confidentiality ring. Despite several opportunities accorded to the remaining OPs, viz. Digitech Computers (OP-4), Softlabs (OP-5), Hind Technocare (OP-8) and Krishna Kapoor (OP-11), they did not apply for being part of the confidentiality ring. The OPs and their respective individuals (except of HP India) filed their respective objections and/or suggestions to the Investigation Report.

11. The Commission heard the arguments of the OPs and their respective individuals on 25.02.2026, 12.03.2026 and 09.04.2026, including submissions on penalty and mitigating factors, and allowed the parties to file post hearing submissions which were duly filed.

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Submissions of the Parties HP India and its nine individuals 12. HP India filed objections/suggestions on 11.04.2025, in confidential and non- confidential version along with an application for confidentiality. Pursuant to oral hearing, HP India and its individuals filed their post hearing submissions on 07.05.2026, in confidential and non-confidential version.

13. By way of oral arguments and written submissions, HP India, inter alia, submitted as under:

13.2. Manufacturer’s Authorisation Form (‘MAF’) is a document required by Institutional/Government entities from the prospective bidders as part of tender conditions. MAF is issued by Original Equipment Manufacturer (‘OEM’) to ensure that the products are genuine and to preserve warranty condition on the products delivered under a given tender/order. Government tenders for Personal Systems Products are managed by Account Managers and Zonal Managers. MAF requests were routed through Account Managers.