CCI approves PayU acquisition of BillDesk for $4.7 billion

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Monday approved payment gateway PayU's $4.7 billion acquisition of online payments firm BillDesk.

The deal was announced in September last year.

Trilegal advised PayU on the deal and on the Competition Law aspect. The Competition team was led by Head of Competition Law and Partner Nisha Kaur Uberoi who was assisted by Partner Gautam Chawla; Senior Associates Harshita Parmar, Mathew George and Rahat Dhawan; and Associates Shivangi Chawla, Aditi Khemani, Samriddha Gooptu, Pramothesh Mukherjee, Ishan Arora, Rishi Kauntia, Madhav Kapoor, Akanksha Mathur and Varunavi Bangia.

CCI had issued a show-cause notice flagging prima facie competition concerns and sought an explanation as to why a detailed investigation should not be undertaken on aspects of Phase II of the deal. The Trilegal team advanced legal and economic arguments and successfully convinced the CCI to approve the transaction in Phase I without any remedies.

Trilegal had instructed Senior Advocate Aditya Sondhi for the hearing before the CCI on the response to the show-cause notice.

This is the first and only instance of the CCI clearing the transaction unconditionally (without any remedies) after issuing a show-cause notice.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas acted for BillDesk and and advised on the Competition aw aspect. The Competition team was led by Partner Aparna Mehra along with Senior Associate Rahul Shukla and Associate Kshitij Sharma.