DECISION GUIDELINES

The Competition Act includes no general rules for economic and legal analysis. There is no general procedure for defining markets. There are not market share presumptions as indicators of dominance, thresholds for evaluating market concentration, references to entry barriers or indicators of the scope of an efficiency defence. In this context, and as a means to grant certainty about the criteria and procedures used by the prosecutor, in October 2006 the FNE issued its Internal Guide for the Analysis of Horizontal Concentration Operations. This Guideline is an internal working tool aimed at informing and orienting firms, as well as the community as a whole, about the FNE's main analytical and methodological approach in horizontal concentration operations' investigations. The guideline provides criteria for defining relevant markets, entry barriers and entrance conditions, market shares, market concentration levels and efficiency gains. However, the TDLC is not bound by these guidelines.

The Guideline's text can be downloaded here (Spanish version available).