Chile: New urgency to Competition Reform after pharmacy case

The reform process currently working to improve Chile’s competition legislation should accelerate, having become a matter of ‘extreme urgency’ for the lower house of congress’ Economics Commission, declared Minister Luis Felipe Cespedes. The project is to be sent to the Senate for review this week.

“We want to give a clear signal, that collusion cannot be tolerated in our economy, as it affects millions of citizens. We must be drastic in our sanctions.” Harking back to similar cases in 1995 and 2008, the minister concluded that current penalties are not enough of a deterrent.

New sanctions proposed by the executive, of up to 30% of total sales of products related to the condemned behavior, has been considered as excessive by many experts, including Chile’s Competition Tribunal. The proposal also includes prison sentences of between 5 and 10 years, a measure criticised as being “a false promise of punishment.”

Source: Conadecus

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