Chilean supermarket chains Cencosud, SMU, and the local unit of Walmart were fined US$12.1 million on Thursday, February 28, for participating in a scheme to fix the price of fresh chicken, according to court documents.
The companies, which have a combined market share of more than 90%, stated they would appeal to Chile’s supreme court.
The antitrust court TDLC found that the scheme took place between 2008 and 2011, the documents seen by Reuters showed.
The TDLC fined Censosud US$5.14 million, Walmart Chile US$4.1 million, and SMU US$3 million.
The antitrust regulator, the FNE, brought the case in 2016 after Chilean paper manufacturer CMPC and a division of Sweden’s SCA were fined and ordered to compensate consumers for colluding for a decade to fix toilet paper prices.
The FNE had called for fines of up to US$22.9 million for each supermarket chain, while Chile’s Christian Democrat Party demanded jail time.
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