CHILE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Francisca Levin, Benjamín Torres, María Paz Dulanto and Antonia Silva, Cuatrecasas
Increase in the Number of Transactions Cleared Subject to Remedies in Phase I From late 2025 and into early 2026, an increased num - ber of cases have been conditioned upon remedies. In comparison to previous years, there has been a boost in the number of cases cleared in Phase I where the parties have offered remedies that have been consid - ered sufficient to address concerns raised by the FNE – thereby avoiding the extension of the investigation into Phase II. In previous years, conditional clearances in Phase I used to be a more exceptional scenario. In most cases, the parties only aubmitted remedy pro - posals in Phase II, once the FNE had reached its con - clusions on the competitive impact of the transaction. This trend towards increased Phase I conditional clearance decisions could reflect the FNE’s willing - ness to clear transactions through tailored (and some - times very sophisticated) remedies at earlier stages of the investigation, avoiding the cost of extending into Phase II the scrutiny of transactions that raise concerns that could have been reasonably remedied in Phase I. According to the FNE’s Remedies Guidelines, Phase I remedies need to be sufficiently comprehensive and clear to address readily identifiable concerns raised by the transaction. Possibly, one explanation to this policy shift of Phase I remedies could be the fact that in certain transactions the concerns are more evident and require less investigative tasks from the FNE to be able to raise them (ie, in cases of risks of sensitive information sharing or incentives to co-ordinate due structural links with competitors), and therefore merg - ing parties would be more keen to solve competition concerns earlier in the proceeding, thus obtaining a swifter and more efficient review process. SQM/Codelco In April 2025, the FNE cleared a public-private joint venture between the Chilean National Copper Corpo - ration (CODELCO) and Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM), regarding the extraction, production and commercialisation of minerals from the Salar de Atacama, Chile’s largest salt flat. The FNE concluded that the transaction could substantially lessen compe - tition by creating a structural link between participants in the lithium industry, likely facilitating co-ordination
particular, the benefits of the agreement will be signifi - cant in relation to the ability to investigate and pros - ecute practices such as failure to notify or breaches of the ex-post duty to report minority acquisitions of competitors, among others. By making use of the SII’s comprehensive records, the FNE will be better posi - tioned to detect these unreported transactions and be able to undertake enforcement actions against the parties involved. Subsequently, in May 2026, the FNE issued internal instructions for actions prior to the initiation of investi - gations into possible merger control violations, which provide transparency on the criteria that must be applied by FNE officials when gathering evidence to evaluate a complaint or opening an ex officio investi - gation to scrutinise allegedly anti-competitive transac - tions or alleged gun jumping violations. In addition, the FNE appointed two officials as dedicated Monitoring Officers to reinforce internal information gathering and identify unreported concentrations. These efforts emphasise the FNE’s goal of trans - parency regarding its framework for prioritising and conducting investigations into alleged procedural infringements of merger control rules, so as to ensure that the agency’s efforts to monitor merger control compliance are carried out as effectively as possible. In summary, all these actions fall within a broader strategy of strengthening Chile’s merger control sys - tem, seeking to enhance its efficacy and to safeguard the preventive nature of the regime. Whether through enhanced access to information via the agreement with the SII, through the provision of guidance on the exercise of enforcement tools in the investigation of underreported transactions or through the appoint - ment of Monitoring Officers, the FNE is sending a clear message to companies that rigorous enforcement in relation to procedural infringements of merger con - trol will be applied. Businesses operating in Chile, or evaluating whether to invest, should take note of these developments and ensure that their M&A activities fully comply with the regime’s obligations and pro - cedures.
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