The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in Delhi has approved applications from Meta Platforms and WhatsApp LLC requesting the redaction of confidential commercial information from the tribunal’s November 4 judgment that upheld the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) Rs 213 crore penalty for abuse of dominance in the OTT messaging market.
A bench comprising Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan and Technical Member Arun Baroka directed that specific portions of the judgment identified as confidential, highlighted in blue by the parties, be removed from the publicly available version and from certified copies. No inspection of the redacted portions will be permitted.
Counsel for WhatsApp sought the removal of confidential material on pages 194 to 196 of the judgment. The bench noted that the CCI had no objection to the request and ordered that the designated material be removed from the judgment uploaded on the tribunal’s website and from all certified copies.
Meta requested redaction of confidential content on pages 200 to 202, specifying that only the blue-highlighted segments within the paragraphs be removed. The CCI again expressed no objection. The tribunal ordered that only the highlighted portions be redacted from the judgment, certified copies, and inspection.
The November 4 judgment had upheld the CCI’s findings that WhatsApp and Meta abused their dominant position in India’s OTT messaging market by imposing unfair data-sharing terms and compelling users to accept the 2021 privacy policy, which enabled broader transfer of WhatsApp user data to Meta platforms.
The tribunal held that privacy considerations do not limit the CCI’s jurisdiction to investigate anti-competitive conduct, observing that privacy is a non-price factor and that excessive data collection may amount to service degradation.
However, the tribunal set aside the CCI’s five-year ban on sharing WhatsApp user data for advertising purposes, holding the restriction lacked justification. It also reversed the commission’s finding on leveraging under Section 4(2)(e), noting that Meta and WhatsApp are separate legal entities. While the appeals were partly allowed, the Rs 213 crore penalty and findings on unfair conditions and market access restrictions under Sections 4(2)(a)(i) and 4(2)(c) remain in effect.
