Uruguay: Competition Commission evidence-gathering powers reinforced

Uruguay’s government has been hard at work with a proposed bill, which would allow the country’s competition authority, the CPDC, to employ a greater variety of research tools that would allow it to operate as a “dissuasion” to possible future anticompetitive practices, said CPDC’s commissioner Javier Gomensoro.

“Our norms are being subjected to a revision” said the official. The Commission will work off of a United Nations programme – which has already released a report on Uruguay and is now reviewing it with other competition agencies around the world – in order to develop “recommendations and suggestions for improving the current competition regime”.

“We often run into some obstacle or barrier when gathering evidence. I may detect that five companies all charge virtually the same, but proving that they agreed on this and engaged in a collusion agreement is much harder. These days, my threshold is only recordings, e-mails or signed documents”, said Mr. Gomensoro. “Only the strongest evidence” is enough to fulfil the onerous requirements.

Full content: El Observador

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