Global holdco media buying units at Publicis Groupe, WPP’s GroupM, IPG Mediabrands and Dentsu were among the high profile raids on offices last week by India’s competition regulator, the Competition Commission of India (ICC), after a Reuters report linked Japan’s Dentsu “as at least one firm” that tipped the antitrust body last year to alleged price fixing and market collusion under a “leniency scheme”.

Silence has all but fallen on the unprecedented raids last week, which come just as India’s booming IPL cricket season begins, pulling enormous funding from major brands in sponsorship and advertising deals. 

The investigation centres on whether advertising agencies colluded with broadcasters to manipulate ad rates, maintain artificially high prices, or control discount structures. Although initially focused on media agency groups, broadcasters and advertising industry groups, the investigation is reportedly now broadening to FMCG advertisers and Big Tech companies. 

During the raids of offices in Mumbai, New Delhi and Gurugram, CCI officials collected physical documents, emails, and internal records related to pricing agreements and coordinated rate cards, cloned computers and mobile phones to gather data, obtained call, text and data records between executives and financial records and internal communications to scope the extent of coordination between agencies and broadcasters on advertising deals.

Several senior industry executives in the region Mi3 spoke to with knowledge of the investigation said there had been no developments or updates since the raids, which included industry bodies such as the Indian Society of Advertisers, the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation – the latter represents top Indian broadcasters including the recently inked $8.5bn merger between Disney and the Ambani family-controlled Reliance Industries media assets. 

The Reliance-Disney joint venture, finalised last November, is estimated to control 40 per cent of India’s broadcast and streaming market. Reliance Industries chairman, Mukesh Ambani, is the world’s ninth richest person, according to Bloomberg with a net worth of US$113bn. Last year’s lavish wedding festivities of his youngest son drew celebrities, global tech, media and business luminaries including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump and the Kardashians.

Reliance Industries, which has diversified interests in retail, telecommunications, media and technology, has signalled it will invest up to $20bn in Australian renewable energy projects, solar particularly.