The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) believes that it is not the appropriate time to introduce criminal provisions including imprisonment in Competition Law, which would send negative signal to the local as well as foreign investors.
Responding to a query, the CCP Chairperson Rahat Kaunain Hassan informed media here on Tuesday that there are many countries, which have criminal penalties in the competition laws, and they also exercise these penalties by sending to jail the owners or directors of the companies involved in cartelization. However, the judicial system in these countries is speedy, which expedites clearance of cases against companies subject to criminal proceedings.
In this connection, the CCP would submit a paper to the Finance Ministry about viewpoint of the commission on introducing criminal provisions in the competition law. Earlier, it was pointed out during the media interaction that the Ministry of Finance wanted to incorporate criminal penalties in CCP Law to empower the agency give punishment of jail sentence along with fine for those involved in cartelization in the country.
She was of the view that Pakistan has recently introduced the competition regime and it is not the right time to introduce criminal penalties as this would require legal changes. The competition law would become a Criminal Act in case such kind of provisions is being introduced in the existing Act.
Explaining the difficulties in criminalizing the offences under CCP law, she informed that the appellate forums of the country are not well equipped with CCP law, onus of proving one guilty would shift, and it would also send a negative signal to investors. Rahat Kaunain observed that it is up to the businesses to improve their business practices so as to comply with the Competition Regime. The introduction of such criminal provisions in the law would not give the right message to the business community.
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