El pasado 15 de noviembre, la profesora Michal Gal anunció quiénes estarán a cargo de la dirección de los capítulos regionales de ASCOLA por los próximos dos años. Para el caso de nuestro capítulo, la profesora Gal informó que la junta directiva de ASCOLA decidió preservar como co-director del capítulo América Latina a Juan David Gutiérrez y nombrar como nuevo co-director a Andrés Calderón López.

A continuación compartimos una breve reseña de la biografía de Andrés:

Jefe del Departamento Académico de Derecho y Director de la Clínica Jurídica de Libertades Informativas y Transparencia de la Universidad del Pacífico en el Perú. Investigador asociado del Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión y Acceso a la Información de la Universidad de Palermo en Argentina. Es Master of Laws (LL.M.) por la Universidad de Yale (Estados Unidos), abogado y bachiller en Derecho por la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Ha trabajado para las agencias de competencia de Perú (Indecopi y Osiptel) y Estados Unidos (Federal Trade Commission), y es hincha acérrimo del más reciente campeón del fútbol peruano, Alianza Lima.

Los planes que tenemos Andrés y yo para el 2022 están consignados en la propuesta formal que presentamos a la junta directiva de  ASCOLA para ser escogidos como co-directores y que compartimos a continuación:

---

Proposal – ASCOLA’s Latin American chapter

Dear professor Gal,

Andrés Calderón and I wish to be considered by ASCOLA’s board to be the co-directors of ASCOLA’s Latin American chapter. 

Before presenting our joint proposal, please allow me to list some of the activities and achievements of the Latin American chapter during the period 2020-2021.

1. Balance of Latin American chapter 2019-2021

• The chapter organized 27 online public events (all available in YouTube), which included:
  • 13 seminars (panel with short presentations of 2 to 5 speakers).
  • 7 colloquia (one presenter / one discussant).
  • 7 young scholar seminars (one or two presenters / one discussant)..
• The chapter has a mailing list (managed with Mailchimp) that comprises over 1,000 people from all over Latin America (students, scholars, practitioners and public officials).
• The chapter has an active young scholars group. The members joined the group after two open calls for candidates who complied with two requirements: 1) be under 30 years old; and 2) have published an article on competition law in an academic journal or have written their undergraduate or graduate thesis on competition law  Aside from the «young researchers colloquia», the main activity of this group is the «young scholars book club» in which a member of the group selects one paper that he or she presents in the session and we invite the author of the paper. Up to date, the book club has had four sessions.
• In July 2020, the chapter published a book on the challenges that Latin America and the Caribbean face due to the pandemic, that included 19 chapters from 10 different jurisdictions. 
• In November 2020, together with Or Brook, Magali Eben y Kati Cseres, the chapter launched the «Competition X-Change project».

2. Proposal for the Latin American chapter 2021-2023

Juan David Gutiérrez and Andrés Calderón propose to co-direct the Latin American chapter of ASCOLA.

Our proposal for the Latin American chapter includes the following activities:

Maintain and strengthen the following activities:

• Colloquia (online), giving preference to ASCOLA members from Latin American and other regions.
• Young researchers seminars (online).
• Young researchers book club (online).
• Joint projects with other chapters of ASCOLA (e.g. the «Competition X-Change project».)

New activities:

1. Organize one call for papers in collaboration with one or two universities (possibly, Universidad del Pacífico in Peru and Universidad del Rosario in Colombia). The selected papers would be presented at an online conference, and the best works would be published by one academic journal in Spanish language.

2. Arrange a series of short interviews (15-20 minutes) with national competition authorities in which one member of the ASCOLA Latin America chapter would ask the interviewees brief questions regarding recent trends in their enforcement activities. After the interviews, a rapporteur would fill a template with the responses, that would be shared with ASCOLA members interested in learning more about Competition Law practice in Latin American countries.

3. Explore the feasibility of creating a global ASCOLA young scholars book club, working together with other regional chapters of ASCOLA.