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CIAO DATE: 4/5/2007
Competition Law and Policy in Argentina
October 2006
Abstract
In the past 25 years Argentina has made considerable, if uneven, progress toward building a successful market economy. In any country, an effective competition policy is an important part of that effort. Argentina’s progress in competition policy has also been uneven, having been affected in many ways by the country’s turbulent political and economic history.
Argentina’s first modern competition law was enacted in 1980. At the beginning, however, the law was not actively enforced. The 1980s were a period of hyperinflation in the country, and inflation was not tamed until 1992, when the government adopted a policy of “convertibility”, pegging the Argentine peso one-to-one to the US dollar. Simultaneously the government embarked on an ambitious programme of privatisation and market reforms, and the Argentine economy enjoyed stability and growth in the 1990s. Coincidentally the competition agency became more active with these reforms. In 1999 a new competition law was enacted, creating a new, independent competition agency and introducing merger control for the first time. A serious economic crisis in 2001 interfered with the full implementation of the law, however. In 2002 the economy again began to grow. Since 2001, however, the competition agency, while staffed with dedicated professionals, has been hampered by an inadequate budget and, some would say, unnecessary interference and oversight from the government. Nevertheless it has undertaken some important merger cases, and in 2005 it prosecuted two large cartels.
An OECD report on Competition Law and Policy in Argentina, prepared in co-operation with the Inter-American Development Bank, was presented and peer-reviewed at the OECD-IADB Latin American Forum on Competition in July 2006. The report describes and critiques competition law enforcement in Argentina and offers some far-ranging recommendations on how it can be improved.
