The National Consumer Service (Sernac) reported on Wednesday that the Salcobrand and Cruz Verde pharmacy chains will have to compensate about 53,000 customers with $22,000 who were affected by collusion in drug prices.
“This is a breakdown that he endorsed today that sets an important milestone in our country regarding the responsibility of companies that commit this type of serious illicitity,” explained Sernac director Lucas del Villar.
Salcobrand and Cruz Verde reached this agreement with Sernac after sernac filed a class action against three chains, including Smoked Pharmacies, for the collusion of 206 medicines between December 2007 and March 2008.
In total, both pharmacy chains will disburse the figure of $1.166 million.
Meanwhile, Smoked Pharmacies explained that it will not adhere “after the proposed agreement assigned the same legal status to the three companies, uncovering the radically different role that Smoked Pharmacies has played throughout the judicial process.”
“We cannot accept that the cost of this negotiation is to ignore all the reparative actions that the company took immediately after having consteend a conciliatory agreement with the FNE, which certainly reflect from the outing a position totally opposite to that of our competition,” they add.
