The Competition Tribunal ruled in favor of Constructora e Inmobiliaria Independencia, against the sanitary services company Aguas Nuevo Sur Maule S.A. (ANSM). The latter had been accused of establishing arbitrarily discriminatory charges when providing water treatment and sewage services to housing projects in rural areas of the VIIth Region. The Tribunal sentenced the latter to a fine of approximately CL$ 600 million (around US$ 1,25 million).
The Tribunal also accepted partially the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office’s lawsuit, fining Aguas Nuevo Sur Maule S.A. and ESSBÍO S.A. with CL$ 566 million and CL$ 1,060 million, respectively (around US$ 1,2 and US$ 2,2 million, respectively) for using unjustified and abusive parameters when calculating how much to charge to construction companies who hired the provision of water treatment and sewage services for housing projects outside the concession areas of the defendants. Also, the Tribunal ordered ANSM, ESSBÍO, ESSAL and Aguas Andinas to modify their evaluation models for providing water treatment and sewage services outside their concession areas, replacing them for ones that must be accessible to the general public, and must be based in explicit, objective, transparent and non discriminatory parameters.
As corrective measures, destined to avoid future conducts deemed contrary to the Competition Act, the Tribunal ordered the four defendants to present to development companies at least one real alternative for reimbursement of their financial contributions –established in Article 14 of the Law of Water Treatment and Sewage Services Tariffs-, other than “pagarés”. Also, the Tribunal proposed the modification of certain legal provisions that regulate the water treatment and sewage services companies’ activities, establishing the obligation to interconnect certain drinking water, and collection and treatment of sewage water facilities between companies, and recommended the Superintendency of Sanitation Services to appropriately oversee the conditions under which the reimbursement “pagarés” are issued to construction companies.