By Aditya Kalra
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s antitrust inspectors have conducted surprise raids at steel pipe makers Jindal SAW and Maharashtra Seamless as part of an investigation into alleged bid rigging, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.
The raids were conducted at the offices of Jindal SAW and Maharashtra Seamless in and around New Delhi on Monday, and the search operation has now concluded, the two sources said.
Under its rules, details of ongoing bid rigging investigations by the Competition Commission of India remain confidential, and the regulator did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement on Tuesday, Jindal SAW said it “extended full cooperation to the authorities during the course of their investigation”.
Maharashtra Seamless did not respond to requests for comment.
Shares of Jindal SAW dropped as much as 2.6% following news of the raids, which was first reported by Reuters, while Maharashtra Seamless fell as much as 1.6% in Tuesday’s trade.
Jindal SAW is part of India’s OP Jindal Group, which has many businesses in the steel and power sectors.
The case was triggered by a complaint from the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in 2023, related to bidding for certain tenders by the steel pipe companies, the two sources said. ONGC did not respond to a request for comment.
A confidential government document from June 2024, seen by Reuters, showed ONGC made several submissions to the CCI over time in relation to the case, and the watchdog had sought details of its suppliers and vendors.
That month, ONGC was also asked to provide its “assessment of price behaviour in the market of seamless pipes”, the document showed.
In such surprise raids, CCI inspectors typically collect documents and question officials present, and the case can go on for several months.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Additional reporting by Abinaya V; Editing by Jamie Freed, Saad Sayeed and Joe Bavier)
