Let's imagine for a second a soccer match in which there are no rules, and thus the course of the match depends on the decision of each of the teams. It is both illogical and inadmissible, isn't it? The same applies to markets and the relationships between consumers and companies, since clear rules are required for both of them to subsist and complement each other.
This was precisely the conclusion of the Dominican Republic (a country with which Costa Rica has entered into a Free Trade Agreement), which enacted the General Law on the Defense and Advocacy of Competition (42-08) for purposes of fostering effective competition in goods and services markets.
At the request of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID), Weinstok Abogados' Partner Pamela Sittenfeld is responsible for leading the implementation of the National Commission for the Defense of Competition (PROCOMPETENCIA) in said country, and recently traveled to Dominican Republic to perform and evaluation in connection with this process, which she has considered positive and well advanced.
Sittenfeld – an attorney with a Masters Degree in Markets Regulation – sees in competition agencies the right instrument to regulate markets that are opening both internally and externally vis-à-vis their own countries and their region, with consumers as the main beneficiaries of this process.
Based on Sittenfeld's extensive experience in this field, who served for five years as the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Competition (among other positions) in Costa Rica, Sittenfeld considers that countries should adjust to a new regulatory system, as Dominican Republican is presently doing.
"The country will be the ultimate winner, since competition regulations are an essential requirement for companies to become more competitive; thus I believe that in the end this will represent a benefit for the society as a whole", stated Sittenfeld to newspaper Listín Diario of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
The most important contribution derived from this market regulation model consists in the fact that consumers of goods and services are the ones with full decision-making power, something impossible when it comes to State-regulated markets.
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