Documento de trabajo
Private vs public antitrust enforcement: evidence from Chile
Autor
González, Aldo
Micco Aguayo, Alejandro
Institución
Resumen
This article measures the impact of the agency responsible for enforcing
competition law, in the outcome of antitrust trials in Chile. Using statistics on
lawsuits since the inception of the new Competition Tribunal in 2004, we find that
the involvement of the public agency increases the probability of obtaining a guilty
verdict in an antitrust lawsuit by 40 percentage points. Conditional to the issuance
of a verdict, the participation of the prosecutor raises the likelihood of a conviction
by 38 percentage points. The results are robust to possible selection bias by the
public agency. The prosecutor is inclined to takes part in cases involving sensitive
markets and in accusations of collusion. The State-related character of the accused
entity, in addition to its size, does not affect the probability of intervention by the
prosecutor in a lawsuit.