Why? They can be asked. Well, first because we are talking about a “compulsory membership”, as the detail of the Official Gazette says, which was carried out in 2017. Since then, we have been running judicially, 5 years after the events were consummated. This happens for a simple reason, and that is that, without a real competition defense authority, there is no federal body that can contain these tricks and effectively help the country’s economy move forward, and not backwards.
There is collusion, when the members of the same industry agree on what the minimum price of their product will be (always with rising points). In this waythe largest companies secure a high minimum price for their own sales, and a reasonable price for the smaller ones.
That is when we have to talk again about justice for consumers, specialized jurisdictions, free lawyers and prosecutors that really protect them. Because, ultimately, companies do justice for themselves, even in these cases when what would imply a certain “justice” for them, brings with it a large number of inconveniences for the family economy and food.
Here then we open a new door. Why isn’t there already an authority to regulate competition? Because there already is. Law 27,442 created the National Competition Authority, previously called the National Commission for the Defense of Competition. What do both organisms have in common? Never, the courts were formed that would guarantee that acts of collusion such as the one mentioned, or mergers of oligopsony companies that together end up forming a monopoly (Fibertel + Personal + Cablevisión case), do not occur.
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Then, by making the organizations established by law work properly, the national government should seek to disarm these concentration networks instead of sponsoring them, because there is no free market without that. Neither is there competition or competitive prices, worse instead, we find that there is concentration of wealth and distribution of it only upwards. So, the same few entrepreneurs continue to win.
When the strong set the rules for everything and the State ignores it, the system breaks, and ours is broken. Just like that, that’s how the liberal economy system works, and a million-dollar fine can scare you once, but if that fine comes 5 years after the “cartel” was formed, what’s the point? It is clear that it is necessary to continue directing our speeches and goals towards the problem of the family economy, which begins to unravel if as a State we are capable of taking action so that the existing organisms, as well as the secretariats and the ministries, act in function of the defense of the rights that we have as users, as consumers, and as Argentine citizens.
It is not enough with an economy oriented to the common good, there must be an executed planning to ensure the dignity and equity of all the Argentine people. To achieve this reality, the consumer defense authority and consumer justice are key. Without a State present, companies will continue to choose an unfair market or adjusted to their benefits, better said, erasing the humanity of all.
National Deputy for Mendoza.
Source: Ambito