Indecopi fines cement company over S$60m

Companies Yura and Racionalización Empresarial (Raciemsa) were fined over S$60 million by the Indecopi Free Competition Commission (CLC).

Both companies reportedly committed malpractice. dominant position making it difficult for its competitors to access the cement sales market.

This sanction follows an investigation into anti-competitive practices reported between October 2014 and April 2019 in Arequipa, Cusco, Moquegua, Puno and Tacna, areas in which Jura has over 90% participation in cement commercialization.

What did the company do?

The company has implemented a policy to prevent the emergence of new competitors market to distributors with the threat of limiting the sale of their cement to hardware stores that sold a competing product.

Among other things, the company also “sanctioned” distributors by changing the terms of business to force them to sell only their own cement, as well as the selective inclusion of partners in the AConstruir network so that they could not sell competing cement.

A threat was also established to prevent the loading of cement through racemsa or restrict entry to the Yursky plant for carriers transporting competing cement. At the same time, Raciemsa (Grupo Gloria) stopped planning transport services for those who transported cement from companies other than Yura.

Behavior could be observed in emails and was also confirmed by testimonies from former employees Yuraamong other tests.

After reviewing these anti-competitive practices that affected other companies, Indecopi first imposed sanctions that also affected nine Yura workers and former employees, imposing a fine of UIT 253.89, equivalent to SGD 1.2 million.