Tribunal for the Defense of Free Competition reaches decision on pharmaceutical price-fixing

SANTIAGO.- The attorney secretary of the Tribunal for the Defense of Free Competition (TDLC), Javier Velozo, stated today that the organization has already made a decision regarding the case of an alleged price-fixing arrangement reached between the Ahumada, Salcobrand and Cruz Verde pharmacies, and announced that the ruling is being documented.

"The tribunal has already made a decision and the ruling is in the process of being documented, the law says that the tribunal must decide whether the ruling reached during the conciliation hearing does not contradict free competition, in the case that it decides it does not do so, it must be approved", the attorney told Radio Cooperativa.

Velozo added that if the TDLC accepts the agreement made between FASA and the Fiscalía Nacional Económica (FNE), the trial "should end for the parties that reach an agreement, because conciliations are judicially valid, meaning that they are the same as a definitive sentence".

In the case of Salcobrand and Cruz Verde, who rejected the option of reaching an agreement with the FNE and insisted that they never fixed prices, Velozo said that the trial for both shall continue.