The Informant, T. G. Vinayakumar, a movie director, had approached CCI alleging anti-competitive conduct by the above associations. On different occasions, the said associations allegedly tried to force various actors, technicians, producers, financers, not to work or associate with the Informant in any of his project due to the Informant’s efforts to streamline working conditions of artists and for the initiative ‘Cinema Forum’, which envisaged collaboration between film makers and distributors to make low budget movies with new actors.

Consequent upon detailed investigation by Director General, Competition Commission of India (CCI) found that FEFKA as a mighty organisation in the Malayalam film industry consisting of 17 sub-unions engaged in different facets of filmmaking and due to the ban imposed by FEFKA and AMMA on the Informant, many of the artists and technicians were not able to deal with the Informant or any other non-member. Such anti-competitive practise was held to have an appreciable adverse effect on the Malayalam film industry. Accordingly, the Commission found the impugned decisions and practice of AMMA, FEFKA, FEFKA Director’s Union, FEFKA Production Executive’s Union and their five responsible Office Bearers viz. Shri Innocent, Shri Edavela Babu, Shri Sibi Malayil, Shri B. Unnikrishnan and Shri K. Mohanan were found to be in contravention of Section 3(3) of the Competition Act, 2002.

Resultantly, CCI passed the following orders:

• Cease and desist from indulging in anti-competitive conduct.

• A Penalty of ₹ 4,00,065/- (Rupees Four Lacs and Sixty Five), ₹ 85,594/- (Rupees Eighty Five Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety Four), ₹ 3,86,354/- (Rupees Three Lacs Eighty Six Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Four) and ₹ 56,661/- (Rupees Fifty Six Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty One) was imposed on AMMA, FEFKA, FEFKA Director’s Union and FEFKA Production Executive’s Union respectively, calculated at the rate of 5% of their average income.

• Further, ₹ 51478/- (Rupees Fifty One Thousand Four Hundred and Seventy Eight), ₹ 19113/- (Rupees Nineteen Thousand One Hundred and Thirteen), ₹ 66356/- (Rupees Sixty Six Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Six), ₹ 32026/- (Rupees Thirty Two Thousand and Twenty Six), ₹ 27737/- (Rupees Twenty Seven Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Seven) was imposed as penalty upon Shri Innocent, Shri Edavela Babu, Shri Sibi Malayil, Shri B. Unnikrishnan and Shri K. Mohanan respectively.

Detailed order of CCI can be accessed on its website www.cci.gov.in.

Group boycott by industry associations found to be an anti-competitive horizontal restraint, prompting cease-and-desist and penalties. The Commission found that coordinated decisions by AMMA, FEFKA, two FEFKA unions and five office-bearers constituted a collective denial of market access-inducing industry participants not to work with a particular filmmaker or non-members-amounting to a group boycott and horizontal restraint with an appreciable adverse effect on the Malayalam film industry, and directed the associations and individuals to cease such conduct and imposed monetary penalties based on their assessed average income.