Cencosud, a firm behind the Jumbo and Santa Isabel supermarkets, decided not to compensate consumers affected by chicken collusion.
On April 8, the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court increased fines to the three supermarket chains – SMU (Unimarc controller), Cencosud (Jumbo, Santa Isabel) and Walmart (Lider) – for colluding on the price of selling chicken meat. Specifically, they were fined 29,568 Annual Tax Units (UTA), or about US$21.1 million ($17,869,590,000 in Chilean pesos).
Once the ruling was known, Walmart would have agreed to study any compensation to consumers, information that was given to the National Consumer Service (Sernac) on a missive confirming its interest in participating in a Collective Voluntary Procedure (PVC). SMU and Cencosud had not decided on this.
However, according to the newspaper La Tercera, Cencosud dismissed this compensation in its disclaimers in the face of a class action brought by Sernac before the Court of Defence for Free Competition (TDLC).
“The anti-competitive illegal in question did not cause harm to consumers, as it did not alter Cencosud’s conduct on the market in the absence of sanctioned conduct. Consequently, the damages claimed are non-existent,” says the said medium.
According to the company’s lawyers, “coluseoria conduct may not cause harm to third parties, and yet it is set up an anti-competitive wrongdoing. In fact, international studies have determined that a not smaller percentage of the cartels does not cause any harm.”
