COLOMBIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Jaime Trujillo, Juan David Velasco, Natalia Ponce de León and Angelica Navarro, Baker McKenzie S.A.S.
Consumer Protection Legislative Outlook A bill of law proposes a comprehensive reform of Colombia’s Consumer Protection Statute. The bill aims to modernise and strengthen consumer rights across both traditional and digital markets. Key proposals include: • empowering local authorities to impose sanc - tions; • requiring transparency in credit offers (eg, dis - closing the annual cost of financing); • mandating the display of product reparability indexes; and • prohibiting tied sales, deceptive environmen - tal claims (greenwashing) and discriminatory profiling in customer service. Technology There are currently more than nine bills filed before the Senate concerning artificial intel - ligence (AI). These legislative proposals aim to establish public policy frameworks for the devel - opment, use and implementation of AI technolo - gies. On 20 May 2025, Congress introduced a bill of law establishing a comprehensive framework for the regulation of AI. Drawing on international models – including those from the European Union and Brazil – the bill outlines incentives, risk classifications and accountability mecha - nisms for AI development and deployment in Colombia: • national AI oversight and regulatory author - ity – the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation will be the entity responsible for supervising and regulating the development and use of AI; • adaptation and review – the Ministry will peri - odically review and update the law to ensure
The ruling concluded that the law imposed an arbitrary limitation on economic freedom and competition, and therefore could not be justi - fied under the Colombian Constitution. Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality The Constitutional Court declared unconstitu - tional a provision that allowed internet service providers (ISPs) to offer differentiated service plans based on users’ consumption profiles. This effectively prohibits mobile network opera - tors from determining which applications are • enabled content blocking or interference; • allowed discriminatory access to content, applications or services based on origin or ownership for commercial purposes; and • violated the principle of net neutrality, infring - ing on the rights to freedom of expression and informational pluralism. In the preliminary statement of the decision, the Court emphasised that net neutrality is a fun - damental regulatory principle for ensuring equal treatment of all internet traffic. Any deviation undermines the internet’s democratic role as a platform for the free exchange of ideas and infor - mation. The Court also reaffirmed the internet’s essential role in enabling fundamental rights, including education, work and especially free - dom of expression. included in their data packages. The Court found that this practice: To ensure a smooth regulatory transition, the Court deferred the ruling’s effects for one year from the date of publication of the full decision. As of now, only the preliminary press release (issued in late May) is available; the full text has not yet been published.
189 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook