Pablo Javier Blanco
08/11/2020 - 13:01
- Clarín.com
- Economy
- Economy
The defense of competition continues to be a debt in Argentina. More than two years after the sanction of the law that protects consumers, the decentralized authority that established the regulations has not yet been established and, in the midst of the pandemic, it seems to be further away than ever.
For this reason, Elisa Carrió and her party today urged President Alberto Fernández, his Minister of Production, Matías Kulfas, and the Secretary of Internal Trade, Paula Español, to take up the necessary procedures and send the documents of the possible members of the body, under the warning of a daily fine until they do.
In addition, the CC-ARI denounced the President and his officials for failure to comply with the duties of a public official for interrupting the competition provided for by the 2018 law through the decree in which it stopped the contracting of the State upon receiving the government of Mauricio Macri.
The first antitrust law dates from 1980. Almost 20 years later, in 1999, the creation of an autarkic administrative court was reformed and promoted , to ensure political independence to make decisions that would affect both politics and the economic sector. The truth is that this body was never created.
In 2014, the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner regulated the Supply Law that repealed that Court and empowered Guillermo Moreno to regulate competition, with his particular methods, concentrating those functions in his controversial figure.
The management of Cambiemos, with the impulse of Carrió and Mario Negri, the new Law for the Defense of Competition obtained half a sanction in Deputies in November 2017. And then, in April 2018, in the Senate, the law was sanctioned by 50 votes in favor and 8 against (those of the senators of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, today vice president).
It had two parts: on the one hand, heavy fines and penalties for cartelized companies; on the other, the creation of the National Competition Authority, as a decentralized and autarkic body.
The specifications to integrate that body arrived at the Senate only on December 6, 2019, just four days before Mauricio Macri and Alberto Fernández starred in the transfer of power. The process was stopped on the 14th, by Decree 36/2019 destined to the review of all contracts and tenders carried out by the Government of Cambiemos.
The Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas, and the Secretary of Internal Trade, Paula Español, during the announcement of the expansion of the Price Care program. (Photo: Presidency of the Nation)
In February 2020, the documents of the candidates of the candidates were withdrawn for review and the issue was left in a nebula , in the context of the successive extensions in the framework of Covid-19.
For this reason, now Carrió, the Buenos Aires legislator Hernán Reyes, and the deputies Maximiliano Ferraro and Juan Manuel López have urged the President and his officials to complete the process to guarantee the full validity of the Competition Defense Law, forwarding the documents to the Senate for debate or sending those of new candidates.
"In February of this year, the Executive withdrew, for review, the specifications to establish the National Competition Authority, and since then it has not called for a new competition, nor were they issued on the alleged revision of the specifications," they explained.
"The absence of the National Competition Authority implies a restriction on the rights of companies and consumers who are unable to access the natural, independent judge and technical expertise provided by Law No. 27,442, for the control and punishment of conduct anti-competitive. The independence of said body is a necessary condition for a body that studies, investigates and sanctions both private individuals and state companies or with the participation of the government officials in charge, ”they argued.
For the CC-ARI, despite the new law, the Alberto Fernández administration continues to appeal to the Kirchnerist model, concentrating on Paula Español, Secretary of Internal Trade, the functions that an Autonomous Court should perform.
"The heart of the law is not there, the same official who sets the price policy is the one that controls them, " Hernán Reyes told Clarín , who analyzes that in the speech that Axel Kicillof gave in the debate in Deputies is one of the keys to the attitude of the current government.
What did the now Buenos Aires governor say when he was a deputy about this law? Kicillof was one of his harshest critics and called the bill "Little Red Riding Hood" law.
He said: "It is the story of the wolf disguised as the grandmother, it seems something precious and loving but it hides a really regrettable content, it seems to me that with this law the same thing happens again." And he added: "This is not arranged with a Court, you have to act from the State to defend the consumer ."
"Kirchnerism has a corporate view of economic and power relations , that is absolutely conservative and all it does is reproduce the status quo that impoverished us 70 years ago," argued Carrió's legislator, who explained that they sent him a letter Fernández and Kulfas to reactivate the process and implement the Law for the Defense of Competition, but they received no response.
Regarding the new criminal complaint against the President, which is added to one presented last week for including Carlos Beraldi, Cristina Kirchner's lawyer in the advisory commission of the Judicial Reform, they explained that, in their opinion, the decree of charges cannot slow down the process.
" We are public officials, we cannot omit to file a criminal complaint upon detection of a regulatory breach. Just as we presented the amparo to encourage compliance with the terms of the law, we must at the same time denounce the breach of the duties of a public official" they stated.
