The CARICOM Competition Commission (CCC) actively participates in the OECD Regional Centre for Competition in Latin America’s Workshop on Enforcement Tools and Techniques to Fight Cartels, held in Lima, Peru, from 4-6 June 2024. The workshop’s first day highlighted the OECD’s work in collecting and publishing data on cartel enforcement and included an institutional tour of Indecopi, Peru’s national competition authority.

On the second day, Alexandre Barreto, General Superintendent at CADE Brazil, delivered a keynote address that shed light on the evolving landscape of cartel detection in Brazil. While leniency tools had historically been effective in Brazil, there has been a recent decline in leniency cases, like the trends observed in the US. To address this, CADE is focusing on proactive intelligence tools. Barreto discussed a new initiative within CADE to create a specialised intelligence unit to support cartel investigations by analysing data from dawn raids and employing advanced algorithms. He shared a recent success story from April 2023, where a cartel in São Paulo was prosecuted based on indirect evidence of bid rigging.

Alfonso Garcia Jiminez from Spain’s Economics Intelligence Unit provided insights into their use of statistics and artificial intelligence to detect cartels. His team, which includes lawyers, economists, data engineers, data scientists, and mathematicians, supports the Competition Directorate by applying AI and statistical techniques to detect fraud and prepare for dawn raids. Jiminez highlighted several tools, including BRAVA, a model for classifying bids as collusive or competitive., which has proven effective in detecting cartels.

The workshop also featured contributions from other countries in the region, sharing their experiences and techniques. Alejandre Giuffra, President of CPDC Uruguay, discussed the importance of leniency programmes in cartel detection, emphasising the need for clear rules to give companies confidence to come forward. Gabriel Delgado Juárez, Chief Economist in the Anti-Cartel Unit at COFECE Mexico, discussed various screening techniques used when leniency programmes are insufficient. He provided examples of bid coordination in public procurement and the use of statistical methods to detect collusion.

Juan Correa from FNE Chile compared his agency’s experience with machine learning to Spain’s,
highlighting challenges in data cleaning and human resource constraints. Keziah Calbio from the Trinidad and Tobago Fair Trading Commission (TTFTC) shared the challenges of a young competition authority in investigating cartels and emphasised the importance of international cooperation and capacity building.

Overall, the second day of the workshop provided valuable insights into innovative approaches and challenges in cartel detection and enforcement across Latin America and the Caribbean, underscoring the importance of proactive intelligence, advanced technology, and international collaboration in combating anticompetitive practices.