The Competition Tribunal dismissed the lawsuit by Sociedad Editora, Impresora y Distribuidora de Publicaciones y Videos Punto Final S.A. against the Ministries of Finance, Justice and Planning and Cooperation, based on actions allegedly against the Competition Act. These actions consisted of an unjustified concentration of the defendants’ announcements in written press, on two large newspaper chains –El Mercurio S.A.P. and Consorcio Periodístico S.A. (Copesa) –, at the expense of other firms, called “independent press” by the plaintiff.
In its ruling, the Tribunal determined that there is no proof whatsoever to believe that the defendants had discriminated arbitrarily against the plaintiff when buying space in press for announcements. There is also no proof that the defendants should have bought more announcement space in Punto Final Magazine.
Regardless of the decision, the Competition Tribunal declared that, from a free competition standpoint, it is desirable that State agencies that need to purchase space in written press, should at least collect the minimum amount of information needed to distinguish which is the most appropriate channel to transmit a given message. Therefore, the Tribunal believes that, as a first step, these agencies should compare information regarding printing and readership, both in general terms and by market segment.