Elite Club is a club of eight Indian banks. The club covers entire Indian territory for its operations and dealings. The club covered entire India with a view of fixing rates of deposits, lending and other rates on banki

According to Section 2(c) of the Competition Act, 2002, 'Cartel' includes an association of producers, sellers or distributors, traders or service providers who, by agreement amongst themselves, limit control or attempt to control the production, distribution, sale or price of or, trade in goods or provision of services. The nature of a cartel is to raise price above competitive levels, resulting in injury to consumers and to the economy. For the consumers, cartelisation results in higher prices, poor quality and less or no choice for goods or/and services. Certain conditions which could be conducive to cartelization are history of collusion, high dependence of the consumers on the products or services, high concentration-few competitors, high entry and exit barriers, homogeneity of the products (similar products), similar production costs, excess capacity etc. Coming to the factual matrix provided in the present case, certain banks have come together under the forum of a Club and are together by agreement amongst themselves, fixing the rate of deposits, lending, fees and other rates on banking facilities including loans and savings for private/household including commercial customers thereby limiting control or attempting to control the price of such services. Keeping in view of the definition of the term cartel stated above it may be said that the activities of limiting control or attempting to control the price of banking services would constitute cartel. The complaint made by the customer is therefore, prima facie valid.