Juntos

Welcome to Juntos, our bulletin that explores antitrust and competition developments across US-Latin America. In this issue, we look at key headlines from the first quarter of 2025.

Antitrust agency brings action against health service providers. Argentina’s antitrust enforcer, the National Commission for Competition Defense (CNDC), has opened an investigation of several health services organizations relating to potential concerted pricing practices. The investigation follows the issuance of preliminary injunctions against the providers that ordered the rollback of certain price increases.

The widespread economic reforms implemented by Argentina’s new government have removed price controls from several markets and required many businesses to develop their own pricing strategies. In some cases, this might have led competitors to seek concerted pricing arrangements with each other. The CNDC’s current investigation demonstrates the antitrust risks associated with this conduct.

Tying and predatory pricing practices in telecommunications sector. The CNDC rejected a complaint filed by one of the main telephone service providers in Argentina that accused its main competitor of exclusionary practices and abuse of its dominant position in the market. The complaint alleged predatory pricing schemes involving special pricing and conditions offered for packages of different services, such as those that bundle fixed and mobile telephone services with internet.

In rejecting the claims, the CNDC found that promotional pricing practices and bundling of products were customary in the industry and neither resulted in the exclusion of competitors nor created impediments to customer movement between different service providers.

President vows antitrust challenge to merger in telecommunications sector. Argentina President Javier Milei has pledged that the CNDC will investigate the proposed sale of assets by one of Argentina’s largest telecommunications providers to a local competitor. In early 2025, Telefónica took bids for all of its Argentine assets as part of its plan to withdraw from most Latin American markets. Results of that process were announced on February 21, 2025, with its main competitor in Argentina winning several key segments of the bid. The transaction immediately closed, with Telefónica receiving payment for its shares.

For the transaction to be valid, however, it must be noticed to and approved by both the CNDC and the national telecom regulator. President Milei’s office has expressed concerns that the takeover would create a monopoly in the industry and threaten efforts to reduce inflation in the country. While the merger has yet to be noticed to the competition agency, the high-level promise of an investigation highlights the potential in Argentina that both this and other transactions that have closed may be undone following post-consummation investigations.

At the end of 2024, Brazil’s competition authority – the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) – opened two investigations into 59 multinational companies accused of exchanging competitively sensitive information regarding employee benefits and compensation over a period covering three decades. The investigations began after self-reporting leniency agreements were reached between CADE and two of those companies. CADE argued that these practices could suppress competition in labor markets in the consumer goods industry.

CADE’s investigation converges with the concerns of other regional antitrust enforcement agencies, as well as those in the United States and Europe, with respect to the use of competition enforcement to protect workers and the exchange of information between competing employers. Particularly as other enforcers increase their focus on labor markets (see United States, below), companies should consider assessing their compensation practices and policies to ensure compliance with antitrust laws. In Brazil, failure to do so could result in fines of up to 20 percent of a company’s economic group’s annual gross revenue within the country.

Chile's competition landscape continues to evolve, as the National Economic Prosecutor's Office (FNE) and the Competition Tribunal (TDLC) address emerging challenges in key industry sectors. Recent developments highlight the growing importance of antitrust enforcement in digital markets, and with regard to technological pricing mechanisms and environmental regulations.

The FNE's e-commerce market study. The FNE has launched a market study of the e-commerce sector to assess potential competition concerns. The study will examine barriers to entry, the role of major platforms, and any practices that might harm competition. As part of this process, the FNE is expected to issue extensive requests for information to industry players, including online retailers and marketplaces, logistics providers, and payment service operators, to build a comprehensive understanding of market dynamics. The FNE's findings could lead to regulatory recommendations or investigations to ensure a fair and competitive online marketplace.

Algorithmic pricing. The FNE’s head pledged that the FNE was prepared to detect and prosecute algorithmic collusion “with the same rigor and with the same force” with which it approaches traditional collusion. In doing so, the FNE joins a growing list of competition enforcers around the globe that have focused on the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) as price setting tools.

While the use of algorithms and AI for commercial purposes can generate significant benefits for both businesses and consumers, such as by adjusting prices in response to real-time supply and demand conditions, they also pose risks, especially with their potential to facilitate collusion between competing firms.

As in the United States, Chile’s antitrust authority is particularly wary of AI-driven coordination that could stabilize prices at higher levels, reducing competition even in the absence of traditional cartel behavior. This growing scrutiny indicates that firms leveraging algorithmic- and AI-driven pricing should ensure that they are in compliance with antitrust regulations to avoid potential pitfalls.

Extended producer responsibility regulation. Chile's new extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation, enacted in 2016 and implemented in stages according to the type of products at issue, requires that producers be responsible for waste created as a byproduct of their production processes. Producers may create individual or collective compliance systems for waste management, but some have noted the efficiencies in joint efforts. As producers collaborate to meet recycling and sustainability targets, there is a risk that these agreements could facilitate anticompetitive practices, such as exclusionary behavior or price coordination. Under the EPR regulation, these joint ventures must submit their governing documents for review by the TDLC and, if necessary, the FNE, and must contract with waste management services using a competitive bidding process. The TDLC ensures that the companies comply with Chile’s competition laws, guaranteeing open access, fair participation, and the protection of free competition. This evolving regulatory framework represents an intersection between environmental policy and antitrust enforcement.

Details continue to emerge about what competition enforcement in Mexico could look like following late-2024 amendments to Mexico’s Constitution that will combine Mexico’s current antitrust authorities – the Federal Antitrust Commission (COFECE) and Federal Institute of Communication (IFT) – into a single agency that exists under an executive branch ministry. Shortly after these amendments passed, funding for COFECE was slashed to less than a third of what it had requested for its 2025 budget. Recently proposed secondary legislation to effect these changes gives some further indication of what the newly reconstituted competition enforcement regime may look like.

The new competition authority, which will be known as the National Agency for Competition and Economic Welfare, would exercise technical and operational autonomy, but its placement within the control of a government ministry that reports to the Mexican president strips COFECE and IFT of their previous constitutional independence from the executive. Much like its predecessor agencies, the new agency will investigate and have the authority to challenge the same conduct, including monopolies, proposed market concentrations, and anticompetitive cartels. Moreover, all acts previously issued by COFECE and IFT will remain legally effective.

Along with structural changes to the number and tenure of agency commissioners, the proposed legislation – which still requires the approval of both houses of Mexico’s parliament – would introduce a new excessive pricing law and substantially increase antitrust fines. It also would lower applicable revenue thresholds and widen the range of transactions and agreements that require notice to the antitrust agency under merger control laws.

For now, COFECE remains the country’s principal competition enforcer, although it is struggling to ensure a continuity of its functions and procedures until the new competition authority begins operating due to its severe budgetary restraints. The situation remains both fluid and must-watch for the future of competition enforcement in the country.

The Peruvian antitrust authority (Indecopi) and national financial regulator (Superintendency of Banking, Insurance and Investment Fund Administrators, or SBS) jointly issued guidance for companies in the financial sector that details how to seek required prior authorization for business concentrations like mergers and acquisitions.

This guide specifies when requests must be submitted to Indecopi, SBS, or both agencies. It also includes practical step-by-step guidelines, including examples of potential business concentrations, intended to ease companies’ compliance with the established requirements.

FBI and DOJ focus on fugitives from cartel prosecution. A recent release from the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shows that the agencies may look across borders to hold individuals accountable for antitrust offenses that impact the American economy. The two agencies jointly published a list of individuals who are considered fugitives from criminal antitrust charges in the United States – some going back almost 15 years – and launched a portal for the public to provide information on the fugitives. The list includes nationals of Colombia, Chile, and Brazil.

The list stands as a stark reminder of both the reach of United States antitrust enforcement and the persistence of federal enforcers in pursuing individuals accused of violating United States antitrust laws. With a new administration in place in the United States, one open question with regard to these fugitives will be the extent of any pressure that the United States exerts on foreign governments to extradite these individuals in an effort to change the calculus of foreign nationals. Historically, many foreigners charged with antitrust crimes in the United States have chosen to stay within the confines of their home country rather than submit to United States jurisdiction, either to stand trial or plead guilty. In addition to outstanding arrest warrants in the United States, antitrust defendants considered fugitives are routinely placed on Interpol’s Red Notice list, which requests that Interpol member nations provisionally arrest individuals pending their extradition to the United States.

At the same time, DOJ launched a webpage encouraging fugitives to seek resolution of their cases, which included a video testimonial from a convicted foreign national who ultimately submitted to United States jurisdiction and pled guilty after five years as fugitive.

Enforcers to continue focus on labor markets. Reflecting the global trend of using antitrust laws to protect workers, and signaling the new administration’s intent to maintain an enforcement priority of prior administrations, the new chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) directed the agency to form a task force to investigate and challenge anticompetitive conduct that impacts workers.

Stressing the importance of the FTC’s authority to protect “American consumers in their role as workers,” Chairman Andrew Ferguson directed the task force to coordinate resources across the FTC’s competition, consumer protection, and economics units to challenge “deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive employer labor practices that drive down what [workers] earn for their labor.”

While the FTC task force is a new development, it continues a nearly decade-long, bipartisan trend of using federal antitrust laws to protect workers from practices like “no-poach,” wage-fixing, and noncompete agreements. This includes the FTC and the DOJ’s recent updates to their Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers, which replaced and significantly expanded upon the agencies’ 2016 Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals.

For businesses that maintain a workforce in the United States, these developments underscore the importance of ensuring antitrust compliance with regard to the human resources function.