Multi-Regulatory System

Abstract

The whole time-line of legal development can be divided into three phases - (1) the phase of regulation, (2) the phase of deregulation and (3) the phase of re-regulation. The first phase of legal development can be called as the regulation phase because during that period, everything was regulated by the State. During this period, the State was regulating all the economic activities of the individual. Almost all the sources of production were lying in the hands of the State. An individual required a license from the State. He could carry-on his economic activities under the strict supervision of the State machinery. This phenomenon actually resulted in a very slow economic growth. Afterwards came the period of deregulation, most suitably known as the period of laisseze faire. During this period, it was thought that the economic activities of the individual should be deregulated. The individual should be free to carry-on any type of economic or productive activity within the framework of law. The State had understood that economic development is possible only when the economic activities of individual are deregulated and he is left free to take economic decisions according to his own conscious. The State should not dictate each and everything to the individual. But this phase of excessive freedom and deregulation resulted in the mis-happenings like great depression of 1932. People had understood that neither full regulation by the State nor full freedom of the individual is going to result in sustained economic development. Something in between the two needs to be adopted. This is actually the current phase known as the phase of re-regulation, where the State has decided to re-regulate the economic development. But, this time the approach is altogether different. Everything is not left to the State to regulate, instead an independent and autonomous regulator is established. This regulator is independent of any governmental or political pressure and is an autonomous body. The regulator is required to be free from the pressure of State because nowadays State is also a player in the market along with the private individuals. Hence, the duty of the regulator is to act as a referee and ensure that level playing field is available to all players in the market, and now player is given any undue advantage or privilege over the others irrespective of the fact that the player may be State itself.

Keywords: multi-regulatory system, regulator, M&A, Bank M&A, CCI, RBI, power of cci to regulate mergers

JEL Classification: K10, K2, K20, K21, L40