¡Ðadministrative action prosecuted by Indecopi's Free Competition Commission:

On September 13^th, 1996, the Free Competition Commission under the recommendation of its Technical Secretariat, resolved to start an investigation on the presumption of price-fixing, volume control, restrain of trade, and conspiracy to establish entry barriers and development of anti-competitive mechanisms to suppress and eliminate competitors, in the market of live chicken in Metropolitan Lima and Callao, between May 1995 and July 1996. The investigation involved several entities from the Poultry sector like the Peruvian Association of Aviculture (PAA) and 19 firms.

The conspiracy accusation presented by the Technical Secretariat against 21 firms for the charges of restricting competition through price-fixing, was declared sustained by the Free Competition Commission in January 15, 1997. Even though at the beginning the procedure included the investigation process for fixing of production volumes, conspiracy to create entry barriers to the market, the investigation was finally centered in the analysis of price-fixing.

The Commission ordered the firms to stop the anti-competitive practices immediately and sanctioned them with fines that were set according to the type and scope of competition restriction, and to the degree of participation of each firm in the formulation, adoption and implementation of the anti-competitive agreements.

The Tribunal in second instance, reconfirmed partially first instance Resolution, in the portion referred to the infringement of Legislative Decree No. 701 for price and volume fixing. However, declared unsustained the process against some firms and reduced the fines imposed by the first instance.