Argentina: Overhaul of Competition Law announced

Marcos Peña, Chief of Staff for President Mauricio Macri, has announced a new initiative to reform the country’s Competition Laws. The initiative promoted by the Executive Branch will seek to merge two existing projects in order to create a National Competition Authority (ANC), establish new guidelines for fines, update the amounts from which acquisitions and mergers must be notified and incorporate a clemency program, among other major changes.

The project now before Argentina’s Congress would see the creation of the ANC as a decentralized and autonomous body within the executive branch. Under its purview would fall a Competition Defense Tribunal (TDC), a Conduct Instruction secretariat and a Merger review secretariat.

The ANC’s boardmembers will be selected via competition by a jury made up of the Treasury Prosecutor, the presidents of the Competition Defense Committees in both chambers of Congress, the Minister for Productionand the Presidents of the National Academy of Law and Social Sciences of Buenos Aires Aires and the Argentine Association of Political Economy. Once elected, each ANC member will serve for five years in office.

The law also increases the amounts necessary to trigger mandatory notification in cases of mergers and acquisitions, from 200 million Argentine pesos (US$11.5 million) to more than 2.2 billion pesos (approximately US$120 million). Regarding sanctions, the project provides that those who make agreements to limit competition or abuse their dominant position in the market will be penalized with fines of up to 30% of turnover over the period of misconduct. Any person or legal entity may apply for leniency before the court and receive reductions or exemptions from the fines, all of which remain confidential.

Full Content: Pagina 12

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