Services

Competition and Regulation

AVL is a pioneer in competition and regulation law. Providing proper counsel requires not only knowing the law, but also understanding how each market’s competitive forces operate. The practice of our interdisciplinary team of expert attorneys combines a deep understanding of both economics and the law.

We support our clients through key moments, from avoiding anti-competitive behavior through compliance programs to counseling them during investigative and judicial proceedings.

Our services

Our services

Abuse of market power is one of the most heavily researched behaviors in the world because it limits competition, negatively affecting economic efficiency and overall well-being.
Our firm’s legal team has a long history of identifying potential practices that might be considered abusive.
To this end, we bring together a multidisciplinary understanding of the markets and over a decade of experience counseling our clients through investigations by the Ecuadorian competition authority in various industries.
One of the basic premises of this discipline is that economic agents must make their own business decisions and not contact competitors to discuss their business or economic activities or strategies.
Our firm’s team has extensive experience identifying potential anti-competitive agreements and designing strategies to ensure that any agreements have no harmful effects.
We have also counseled our clients through investigation proceedings initiated by the Ecuadorian competition authority, with optimal outcomes.
Fair competition among competitors, in line with good-faith business practices, is one of the basic premises of a competitive market. Any violation thereof can limit or distort competition, harming economic efficiency, societal well-being, and consumer rights.
Our team has extensive experience counseling clients under investigation for alleged unfair practices and supporting them in cases of complaints to the competition authority alleging unfair acts.
In an ever more competitive world with growing numbers of transactions, the possibility of business practices having anti-competitive effects has increased.
Our team specializes in providing preventive audits and compliance plans that enable our clients to mitigate risks and create a corporate culture that is consistent with the guidelines of free competition.
Large companies make strategic partnerships to maintain high levels of competitiveness in global markets. These partnerships are zealously reviewed by competition authorities.
At AVL, we support our clients in the process of obtaining authorizations for mergers and concentrations. Our team has a long history of advising buyers and sellers in different industries and under diverse contractual models.
Our commitment to our clients is to view the transaction as a whole, taking each component into account, with an emphasis on comprehensive economic analysis.
We represent our clients at all stages of any competition litigation, from negotiations among the parties to court proceedings, as well as in arbitration where related issues are discussed.
We have extensive experience and a strategic approach based on persuasion techniques inspired in economics, neuroscience and psychology. Our competition law teams, together with the arbitration and complex litigation department, are leaders in the country.

Success Stories

  • We have successfully provided counsel to a national guild in one of the main cartel cases which involved an alleged collusion among its members, achieving the case’s dismissal and the reversal of a decision to initiate a formal investigation.
  • We provided counsel to a pharmaceutical company during an investigation initiated by the competition authority on an alleged refusal to supply products to state hospitals.
  • We have carried out consultancies for the World Bank and the OECD on the status of competition and regulation in Ecuador’s energy, gas, telecommunications, postal, transport, and water industries.
  • We have obtained prior authorizations for mergers and concentrations of companies in the gas, beverage, food, insurance, and pharmaceutical distribution industries.
  • We have implemented over a dozen preventive audits and compliance programs in, among others, the pharmaceutical, insurance, automotive, gas, cement, telecommunications, food, transport, and logistics industries.