translated from Spanish: Collusion of chickens: FNE attends the Supreme to multiply fines to supermarkets

The national economic Prosecutor (FNE) launched an onslaught to get that fines imposed on Cencosud, SMU and Walmart supermarket chains by the collusion of the selling prices of chicken fr raise ESCA.
The FNE filed an appeal of a complaint to the Court’s defense of free competition (TDLC), asking the Supreme Court to increase the sanctions to 30,000 UTA for each of the chains. The amount is equivalent to $17.407.080.000. In its judgment of February 28, the Antitrust Court held unanimously that the supermarket chains if incurred in collusion imputed by the FNE and fined cencosud 5.766 UTA, which equals about 3,345 million pesos, while SMU must pay 3 .438 UTA (1.994 billion pesos) and Walmart 4.743 UTA (2.752 billion pesos).
The case will continue, then pending in the Supreme, where recourse also supermarket chains to appeal the judgment of the TDLC, as they announced these companies once the Court’s decision was known.
Calculation of the fine in its presentation, the FNE questioned the decision of the Antitrust Court with regard to the fines imposed on the chains, arguing that “the basis of calculation of sales affected by the conduct should be broader than that considered by the Court H. because it does not reflect the real effect of the sign that the same Court H. credited”.
According to the FNE, for fixing the fines, the Court found that only they were affected by the agreement promotional fresh chicken meat and not all the category sales, as the prosecution maintains.
According to the prosecution, chains, through its suppliers, agreed a price sale for the fresh chicken meat in supermarkets than or equal to its price of wholesale list, between at least the years 2008-2011.
If Walmart the FNE also questioned the reduction of 15% applied by the TDLC in the amount of the fine of Walmart. According to the prosecution, the Court was having analyzed “seriousness, credibility and effectiveness of the program to determine if was the reduction of the fine, but in any case as the basis for an exemption from liability. In such manner, to have arrived the H. TDLC concluded that Walmart compliance actions were not serious, credible and effective, not should have granted the aforementioned reduction”, ensures the FNE.
The prosecution cited the judgment of the TDLC, which establishes that “there are reasons to estimate that, at least to the time of the facts, Walmart lacked a full compliance and ethics program that counted with the characteristics of reliability, effectiveness and credibility previously indicated”.
According to the FNE, the reduction of fine is inadmissible, since the only causal offence legal disclaimer at headquarters of free competition is the compensated denouncement, issue that has not been configured in this case. In addition, remember that the maximum result of a good compliance program for a required has engaged in an antitrust violation is the reduction of the fine in a reasonable amount.
It is worth highlighting that fines are in tax benefit, not consumers who might have affected.

Original source in Spanish