Regionalization of competition law: Legal implications of the cooperation with the investigation of cartels in Latin America

September 5, 2017

Regionalization of competition law: Legal implications of the cooperation with the investigation of cartels in Latin America – By Luis Marin-Tobar[1]

The past few years have shown a growing trend for the regionalization of competition cases, particularly those relating to the cartels whose exposure and, mainly, whose media coverage in a given country attracts the attention of other regulators in the region. Authorities have begun – even ex officio – to conduct similar investigations into industries and even on companies involved in investigations or in public investigations and fines in other Latin American countries. Parallel to those investigations, we have also observed the creation of cooperative alliances among regulators in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico that might also be extended to Colombia and Peru. This indicates that the trend will only increase the inter-connection among regulators and, potentially, the relation that might be a case investigated in a country, in another, or others in the region. Such regionalization of cases brings a necessary analysis of the aspects of competition law and procedural rules existing in each country. This paper is mainly focused on the risk of judging a specific conduct in several jurisdictions as well as on the effects of the regionalization of investigations o leniency programs as well as over the confidentiality of the parties’ information in Andean Community investigation records.

First of all,