The protection of the interests of consumers is a central aspect of all modern competition laws as well as a direct aim of consumer protection laws. However, despite being complementary in many ways, competition and consumer protection laws cover different issues and employ different methods to achieve their goals. While consumer protection rules are built upon the premise that consumers are the weaker party to transactions and should be directly protected for this reason in their dealings with traders through certain consumer rights, competition law only indirectly protects the consumers’ economic well-being by ensuring that the markets are subject to effective competition. This article explores the interplay between consumer protection and competition law in the Indian context with some comparison with the EU position, where relevant. After an examination of the relevant legislation and case law, the article finds that given that the mandate of the Competition Commission of India is to prevent practices having an adverse effect on competition, in cases of overlap between consumer protection and competition laws, the Authority should act only on the basis of adverse effects on competition. The treatment of ‘unfair trade practices’ is used to demonstrate the appropriateness of this approach.

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印度消费者保护与竞争法之间的相互作用

保护消费者利益是所有现代竞争法的核心内容，也是消费者保护法的直接目标。然而，尽管竞争法和消费者保护法在许多方面具有互补性，但涵盖不同的问题并采用不同的方法来实现其目标。虽然消费者保护规则的前提是消费者是交易的弱势方，因此在与贸易商打交道时应通过某些消费者权利直接受到保护，但竞争法只是通过确保消费者的经济福祉来间接保护消费者的经济福祉市场受到有效竞争的制约。本文探讨了印度背景下消费者保护与竞争法之间的相互作用，并在相关情况下与欧盟立场进行了一些比较。在对相关立法和判例法进行审查后，文章认为，鉴于印度竞争委员会的任务是防止对竞争产生不利影响的做法，在消费者保护法和竞争法重叠的情况下，竞争委员会应仅在对竞争产生不利影响的基础上采取行动。“不公平贸易做法”的处理被用来证明这种方法的适当性。