Ad-Hoc Training Workshop for Supreme and High Court Judges in Peru

The first meeting of this ad-hoc training (12 December) addressed High-court Judges who specialised in mercantile issues and reviewers of administrative rulings. The second meeting addressed Supreme Court Judges and it designed to share some landmark cases from Latin American jurisdictions (Chile, Brasil and Colombia) as well as EU competition cases, particularly from the UK and Spain. The third meeting targetted judges on first instance that will review dawn raid requests carried out by INDECOPI (Peruvian competition authority) and review basis concepts of competition law and Policy and procedural aspects.  Mission Highlights On the whole, Peruvian Judges were fairly familiar with INDECOPI issues. However, INDECOPI, as the umbrella agency, covers eight topics only one of which is Competition Law Enforcement. Therefore, it was important to set aside the other INDECOPI topics so as to make sure that Judges were familiar with the competition analysis that INDECOPI carries out when dealing with competition cases. In the case of High-Court Judges, there was particular interest in how judges in Latin America and elsewhere have reacted towards the economic evidence that, in many occassions, forms the central argument and grounds for appeal to the Judiciary. Therefore, the issue of indirect evidence could be deemed as the "economic analysis" carried out by the competition authority. Furthermore, it was clear from the Supreme Court Judges that it is important thatthe issue of economic law be understood by the Judiciary, so as to provide a clear message to national and international economic agents dealing in Peruvian markets that competition rules are respected and the Competition System works in the country. To this end, UNCTAD held a side meeting on 14 December with the President of the Judicial Power of Peru, Dr. Cesar San Martin, in order to explore ways of strenghtening cooperation between UNCTAD and the Judicial Power, particularly in the case of setting up a comprehensive training programme not only on Competition issues but also Consumer Protection and Unfair competition topics. INDECOPI also organised two workshops with two different key audiences: the heads of the Competition offices at regional level (ORIs) and the competition case handlers of INDECOPI. The idea of these meetings was to share EU experience and case law with practitioners and regionals heads of INDECOPI offices, taking into account that the latter represent an important arm for evidence gathering in competition case investigations carried out nationwide.  Follow-up actions UNCTAD and Oxford Centre on Competition Law and Policy will review the feedback received from the target audiences that were part of the 3 different meetings and submit a proposal to organise a second in-depth course for judges, particularly taking into account the questions and remarks made by these judges during the course of the deliberations. As per the meeting held with the President of the Judicial Power of Peru, UNCTAD will examine modes further of collaboration, taking into account the role of the national coordinator in Peru (INDECOPI) within the framework of the COMPAL Programme. Finally, regarding the meetings held with INDECOPI officials, two important follow-up actions are to be implemented: First, with the heads of ORIs, UNCTAD and COMCO will work together to continue creating the capacities for INDECOPI officials to be able to support the investigation activity of the competition case handlers in the Lima Headquarters. It is scheduled to undertake the first training workshop at the end of January 2013 as agreed in the Plan of actions approved for Peru (POA 2012-2013) Second, during the meeting with Lima-based case handlers, it was agreed to organise an ad-hoc course for case handlers organised jointly between UNCTAD and Oxford University, as part of the regular activities of the COMPAL Programme and approved Plan of actions for 2012-2013. The date and detailed programme of this course will be prepared by UNCTAD and Oxford University jointly.