Peru: Centrum, Consultants offer harsh criticism of country’s competition laws

Peru’s current competition and antitrust laws are inadequate to defend competition between companies. This was the assessment made by Santiago Dávila, a partner at EA Consultores and professor at Centrum. “The existing antitrust law is insufficient for defending competition, as it doesn’t regulate all the potentially uncompetitive practices that may derive from monopoly formation” said Dávila. Some of Peru’s most important mergers in recent years have involved complex markets such as air travel, beer-brewers and bottling plants, banking and private clinics.

Joselyn Olaechea of the Lazo, De Romaña & CMB consultancy added to Dávila’s remarks, saying that the fear that INDECOPI’s decisions over mergers could be used for political gain is unfounded. “The fear of thinking this will be politicized is not justified” she stated.

“Merger control is a public policy tool that may be used to prevent changes in the market structure that may lead to eventual issues with competition in the future” Dávila concluded, urging authorities to improve the country’s existing structures.

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