The Adoption of Modern Competition Policies in Latin America – Part II: South America

By Francisco Beneke*

As announced last week, the data for the Latin-South American countries is presented in part II.

The criteria for setting a starting date of modern competition policy is transcribed from the last post: “The starting date is counted from when a competition authority started to exist, who is in charge of enforcing an antitrust law applicable on an economy-wide basis, as opposed to sectorial regulation of competition. Exclusively criminal liability statutes are excluded since experience has shown they were seldom enforced and, therefore, cannot be counted as a policy apt to deter anticompetitive behavior. For the same reasons, in some cases I do not start counting from the year of the country’s first economy-wide competition law if they were either not enforced or done so in procedures without the expectation of a dissuasive penalty. More details will be presented as each country is analyzed.”

1. Colombia

Colombia has…