MACHINE NAME = WEB 1

Worshops on Competition Law Enforcement for Colombia and Peru (18-23 April 2013)

02 May 2013

UNCTAD, through the COMPAL programme, organised two advanced workshops for competition case handlers of Colombian and Peruvian competition authorities between 18 and 23 April 2013. The workshops were delivered by Prof. Ariel Ezrachi (Director of the OXFORD Competition Policy Centre), Timothy Hughes (Attorney at the US Federal Trade Commission) and Pierre Horna (Officer-in-charge of the COMPAL Programme of UNCTAD).

The work programme was carefully designed to meet the needs and priorities in capacity building for the competition case handlers of these two competition authorities. The main topics discussed during the three-day ad-hoc course were: the aim of competition law enforcement, cartel enforcement, dawn raids, leniency programmes, exclusionary abuse, damages and the calculation of fines. The benchmarks used for these topics were EU and US competition law enforment experiences. UNCTAD provided expertise from jurisdictions elsewhere, in particular detailed comparison between major developments in Brasil, Mexico and Chile.

In Colombia, the competition case handlers actively discussed with the speakers, in particular raising questions regarding: (i) limits of competition law enforcement, (ii) total welfare vs. consumer welfare considerations, (iii) cooperation with regulators, (iv) inconsistencies of Colombian case law towards the analysis of undertakings, (v) burden of proof in the absence of direct evidence, cooperation between SIC (Colombian Competition Authority) and the State prosecutor when it comes with dealing with mixed anticompetitive behaviour (boundaries between civil and criminal legal standing), (vi) conscious parallelism in bid rigging schemes, (v) international cooperation to fight cartels in Latin Americaa; among other issues.

In Peru, some of the issues raised by the participants were in relation to: (i) why Peruvian Competition law does not deal with Merger review for all sectors, despite positive economic growth in the last decade; (ii) the impact of dawn raids in the investigation of INDECOPI (Peruvian Competition Authority) cases; (iii) reactive and pro-active approaches regarding the adequate level of intervention; (iv) challenges when setting priorities and allocating limited resources; (v) assessment of INDECOPI decisions in Peruvian markets; (vi) discriminilisation of Peruvian Competition law with the lastest competition law reform in 2008; among other issues.



Follow-up actions

UNCTAD, SIC and INDECOPI will organise a call for papers targeted to the competition case handlers that were part of the workshops. Two authors from each country submitting winning papers will receive a prize of a study tour at the University of Oxford in October 2013. The evaluators of this prize competition will be UNCTAD, Prof. Ariel Ezrachi and Mr. Timothy Hughes. They will recommend the three best candidates from each country to SIC and INDECOPI, who will make the final decision from these shortlists.

The selection of topics of the papers took place during the training courses. Below is a summary of the main issues selected:

In Colombia:

  • SICĀ“s possibility to issue a policy statement for monetary equitable remedies
  • Conscious Paralellism vs. Bid Rigging schemes applicable to bid-rigging problems in Colombian Law
  • Improving a Leniency Programme for bid riggers for civil and criminal considerations.
  • Incentives under Behavioral Economics
  • Existing laws for Mergers: which improvements could be made at the procedural level
  • Conditions of joint-venture being non-agreements: do they constitute mergers?
  • Leniency & Remedies: Are remedies disincentives for leniency applicants?
  • International cartels in Latin America: the Colombian case
  • Excessive pricing in Colombia
  • Impact of international mergers: assess the problem
  • Dawn raids: which mechanisms could improve the levels of organisation and outcomes of dawn raids in Colombia

In Peru:

  • Dawn raids: How to improve INDECOPI's investigations, a need for guidelines?
  • Sham litigation in Peru
  • The Peruvian competition act: principles, values, goals and case law
  • Criteria for abuse of dominance, effects and relevant market
  • Economic analysis to improve the Leniency Programme
  • Liability of undertaking: horizontal agreement in professional associations
  • State companies in Peru (efficiency at the stake): Petroperu case law
  • Regulation of Public Service & Competition Policy in the telecom and water markets
  • Absence of direct evidence to find an agreement different standards
  • How to measure the real impact of competition enforcement in Peru (agency effectiveness)
  • Constitutive of collusive practices: considering the aim of prohibiting of cartels
  • How criminal prosecution can change leniency programme in Peru?
  • Interplay between IP and Competition
  • Industrial policy vs. Competition Policy
  • INDECOPI's role at competition advocacy: process and reform
  • Leniency: recommendations for Peruvian case: diagnosis and promoting problems