The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered an investigation into the agreement and understanding between ticket booking portal BookMyShow and cinemas including multiplexes. To begin with, the CCI will investigate the affairs of the ticket booking portal. A complaint was made against BookMyShow and multiplex chains like PVR, Inox and Cinepolis by new ticket booking portal Showtime.
Showtime alleged in its complaint that the agreements between BookMyShow and the cinemas was anti-competition, and prevented other online ticket booking portals to conduct business. It also alleged that the service charge levied by BookMyShow was too high, out of which it gave the cinemas a commission. This made it impossible for new portals to do business at lower service charge because they would not be able to pay cinemas commission like BookMyShow. The complaint also alleged that many agreements with multiplex chains provided that their tickets could be sold online by BookMyShow only, a practice, it added, which was restrictive in nature.
On its part, BookMyShow stated that Showtime had started its business of online ticket booking after filing the complaint in the CCI and, therefore, the complaint itself was baseless.