Professional notice
Chile
PHILIPPI PRIETOCARRIZOSA & URÍA opened its doors in January, replacing former competition law powerhouse Philippi Yrarrazaval Pulido & Brunner and merging with Colombia’s Prietocarrizosa and Spain’s Uría Menéndez. Ricardo Riesco, who rivals refer to as “the best”, continues to lead a sizeable antitrust practice that includes two counsel and five associates. The firm’s clients are keen to invest in countries such as Peru and Colombia, Riesco says, so the merger will yield benefits when working on transnational deals.
Some of the region’s most prominent retail, communications and banking companies look to PP&U for advice, including Cencosud, Latin America’s largest retail conglomerate; Quiñenco, Chile’s largest business conglomerate; Banco Santander, Chile’s largest bank; top radio broadcaster Grupo Prisa; and Chilean subsidiaries of Samsung and Xerox. In mergers, PP&U represented Alusa, a plastic packaging subsidiary of Quiñenco, in its acquisition of rival HyC Packaging. PP&U advised Alusa to go forward with the deal without informing the FNE, and after an ex post investigation of the merger, the FNE closed it case in February.
Colombia
Martín Carrizosa runs the Colombia competition practice of the multi-jurisdictional Philippi Prietocarrizosa & Uría with the strong support of senior associate Diego Cardona, who is in charge of counselling Cementos Argos in the SIC’s latest investigation of the cement industry. The firm is Colombian counsel for the Halliburton/Baker Hughes merger, which is now in Phase II merger review at the superintendency. Cardona notes that markets in Colombia are often highly concentrated, which means deals such as Ingredion’s proposed global acquisition of Penford or Ecolab/Clariant require extensive analysis. The firm is advising Chilean company CMPC’s Colombian affiliate on the nappies and tissue investigations.
Ricardo Riesco and Martín Carrizosa are the partners heading the competition practice at Philippi, Prietocarrizosa & Uría. The practice also includes another nine specialists dedicated full-time to competition matters, among whom Diego Cardona, Jorge Streeter and Guillermo Zavala have been ranked by Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500. The group deals with both M&A antitrust analysis and competition litigation, and works closely with the intellectual property area of the firm.
The firm has a significant client roster that includes Nokia Siemens Networks, Mexichem Group, Nestlé, Colombia Móvil, CMPC, Siemens AG, Goldman Sachs, EPM, Eli Lilly, Visa International Service Association, Cencosud, Quiñenco (Luksic Group), Enex/Shell, Alusa, Canal 13, Banco Santander, Samsung, and Grupo Prisa Radios, among others. Over the past year, the firm has added Pfizer Nutrition, Omnicom, Grupo Argos, L’Oréal, Grupo GTD and the Chilean Ministry of Energy, in addition to a further extensive set of competition law clients to the roster. The firm certainly boasts the largest and one of the busiest competition law practices in the region.
Main offices:
Chile:
Avenida El Golf 40, 20th Floor, Las Condes
Santiago, Chile
Tel: +56 2 2364 3700
Fax: +56 2 2364 3796
Colombia:
Carrera 9# 74-08
Bogota, Colombia
Tel: +571 326 8600
Fax: +571 326 8610
Barranquilla office:
Calle 77B # 59-61
Oficina 1202
Barranquilla, Colombia
Tel: +575 369 4040
Fax: +575 369 4140
The competition team of Philippi, Prietocarrizosa & Uría is composed of attorneys who have studied at the most prestigious universities in both the U.S. and Europe, been part of government authorities, taught at the most relevant local universities, extensively written about competition issues, and who have broad, substantive experience and expertise in the development of competition law in Colombia, Chile, and the Andean region.
Our services in this area include:
- Preventive advice for companies acting in the most diverse sectors of the economy, aimed at them adopting internal programs to avoid competition contingencies;
- Advice and representation of companies with M&A antitrust analysis and control before local and international competition authorities;
- Representation of companies in administrative and judicial investigations and procedures related to alleged anticompetitive practices, including complaints by the competition authorities, complaints by private parties, cartel accusations, abuse of dominant position accusations and use of leniency programs, reaching out-of-court settlements with competition authorities and private parties, etc;
- Advising on corporate and non-contentious matters related to competition law;
- Advice and representation of companies on issues of consumer protection;
- Advice and representation of companies on matters of unfair competition;
- Advice and representation of companies in procedures related to unfair international competition practices such as dumping and subsidies;
- Advice and representation of companies in disputes indirectly relating to competition law, such as “popular” or class actions, and actions for annulment and restoration of rights.