Santiago.- In a unanimous ruling, the Chilean Supreme Court fined the three main supermarket chains for engaging in a hub-and-spoke collusive scheme to fix a minimum price on fresh poultry meat between 2008 and 2011.
The country’s highest Court upheld the decision issued by the Chilean Competition Tribunal in February 2019, but significantly increased the fines. The Court applied fines of 8.2 million USD to Cencosud, 7.9 million USD to Walmart and 4.9 million USD to SMU.
The Court dismissed the parties’ argument that compliance programs could result in their exoneration or amelioration of responsibility from competition law. The court argued that the only way companies can avoid punishment is through leniency.
The case started in January 2016, by a complaint presented by the FNE.
See Sentencia de la Corte Suprema