{"id":91728,"date":"2021-10-20T18:04:16","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T22:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/?p=91728"},"modified":"2021-10-20T18:04:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T22:04:29","slug":"fne-acusa-por-colusion-a-brinks-prosegur-loomis-y-a-sus-principales-ejecutivos-y-pide-al-tdlc-multas-por-us-63-millones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/fne-acusa-por-colusion-a-brinks-prosegur-loomis-y-a-sus-principales-ejecutivos-y-pide-al-tdlc-multas-por-us-63-millones\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chilean FNE requests all-time high fines in a cartel case against cash and valuables transportation companies and their main executives"},"content":{"rendered":"

On October 7th<\/sup>, the Chilean National Economic Prosecutor\u2019s Office (FNE) filed a complaint before the Competition Tribunal (TDLC) accusing a price-fixing scheme that took place between 2017 and 2018, against the three main cash and valuable\u2019s transportation companies that operate in the country.<\/p>\n

The corporations involved are Brink\u2019s Chile S.A. (Brink\u2019s), Juncadella Prosegur Group Andina S.A. (Prosegur) and Wagner Seguridad Custodia y Transporte de Valores SpA (Loomis). The complaint is also directed against the three firms\u2019 main executives in Chile, Alberto B\u00e1lsamo Barreiro (Brink\u2019s), Marco Malverde Mu\u00f1oz (Prosegur) and Cristi\u00e1n Catal\u00e1n Jerez (Loomis). The FNE also accused the Regional Managers of two of the companies, who oversee the business in Chile and other Latin American countries. This is the case of Mart\u00edn Matos Pardo (Prosegur) and Rui Sanches Da Silva (Loomis), who are based in Portugal and Uruguay, respectively.<\/p>\n

According to the FNE, there is strong evidence that in early 2017, Brink\u2019s and Prosegur engaged in an agreement to coordinate prices offered for their valuable\u2019s transportation, ATM, treasury and payment services. Later, in December 2017, Loomis joined the agreement. The cartel was ongoing at the moment it was detected by the authorities in December 2018.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The investigation<\/strong><\/p>\n

The investigation began in October 2018, after an individual applied to the leniency program. Two months later, the FNE, with collaboration from the local police force (Carabineros de Chile), conducted a dawn raid at the premises of the three firms involved and at the private residences of their respective general managers.<\/p>\n

The investigation uncovered that the main executives of the three accused firms held several meetings in Santiago, Chile. Some of these meetings included Loomis\u2019 and Prosegur\u2019s regional managers, who specially travelled to the country to meet with their competitors. The cartelists also communicated via instant messaging platforms and exchanged spreadsheets that contained prices for their different services, which were later completed by the different parties to the agreement.<\/p>\n

The evidence also shows that the conspirators took measures to avoid being detected. For instance, Alberto Balsamo (Brink\u2019s) used an encrypted flash-drive to store spreadsheets with prices shared with competitors, which was later seized at his private residence. The FNE accessed the files therein with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (United States).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fines<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the FNE, the cartel affected services that are essential to the adequate functioning of the financial and retail markets, and it was harmful to many of the industry\u2019s customers, including entities with social and charitable purposes.<\/p>\n

Thus, the FNE requested the imposition of fines totaling the equivalent to US$ 63,4 million. This sum includes fines amounting US$30,5 million for Brink\u2019s, US$25,8 million for Prosegur and US$6,4 million for Loomis. The claim also demands the imposition of individual fines for the aforementioned executives, ranging between US$88 thousand and US$135 thousand, approximately. On the other hand, the leniency applicant will be exempted from paying a fine and provided immunity from criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n

The National Economic Prosecutor, Ricardo Riesco, declared that \u201cThis cartel took place after the new amendments to the Competition Act came into force, allowing the FNE to request the imposition of the highest fines our competition law system has witnessed to this date. The claim filed by the FNE is also the first step towards a possible criminal prosecution of all those individuals responsible of this very serious wrongdoing<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On October 7th, the Chilean National Economic Prosecutor\u2019s Office (FNE) filed a complaint before the Competition Tribunal (TDLC) accusing a price-fixing scheme that took place between 2017 and 2018, against the three main cash and valuable\u2019s transportation companies that operate in the country. The corporations involved are Brink\u2019s Chile S.A. (Brink\u2019s), Juncadella Prosegur Group Andina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":91478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91728"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91730,"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91728\/revisions\/91730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fne.gob.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}