Compass Lexecon Launches Affiliated Competition and International Arbitration Economics Practice in Chile

Compass Lexecon has entered into a joint marketing agreement with leading economic experts in Chile to establish an affiliated competition and international arbitration economics practice in Santiago, Chile. The affiliated Chile office[1] will expand Compass Lexecon’s practice in Latin America, which also includes its established Buenos Aires office.

Fernando Coloma Ríos, Senior Vice President, heads a team of five in Santiago which will be fully supported by Compass Lexecon experts in Europe and the U.S. The Santiago team includes Academic Affiliates Fernando Coloma Correa, Professor in the Department of Economics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) and former Chairman of the Chilean Superintendence of Securities and Insurance, and Juan Pablo-Montero, Professor in the Department of Economics at the PUC and former Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Stanford Department of Economics and Center for Latin American Studies.

Fernando Coloma Ríos worked for six years at the Chilean Competition Authority (Fiscalía Nacional Económica), where he was Chief Economist and Acting Head of the Merger Division. In this role, he led the economic team during the introduction of the new system for the mandatory notification of mergers in June 2017. He is the author of the report used to set the merger notification thresholds in 2016. Mr. Coloma has led teams in dozens of high-profile, in-depth merger investigations. He defended the Fiscalía Nacional Económica in the Chilean Competition Tribunal and has also advised private companies in Chile and abroad in high-profile competition cases. Fernando has been an active lecturer in the field of economics and industrial organization at the Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de Chile, and Universidad de los Andes. He is currently a lecturer of the Competition Policy Diploma of Universidad Católica de Chile. He holds an M.Sc. in Economics and Management from the London School of Economics, an M.A. in Economics, a Major in Industrial Organization from Universidad Católica de Chile, and a B.A. in Business and Economics from the same university.

Prof. Fernando Coloma Correa specializes in the research areas of regulation, public policies, industrial organization, and labor markets. He has participated as an expert in several tariff-setting processes in the telecommunications industry and has written reports related to the industrial organization of various markets, including telecommunications, electricity, retail, and banking. Formerly, he acted as President of the Council of Regulatory Authorities of the Americas. He is currently a member of the group of experts appointed by the Minister of Finance to improve the Chilean capital market and of the Circle of Finance and Business and the Public Policy Group of Icare. He holds an M.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago. In 2014 he received the Inbest-El Mercurio Award for his contribution to the development of the Chilean capital market and the internationalization of the financial industry and was awarded Professional of the Year by the Alumni Association of the School of Economics and Business of the PUC. He is recognized as one of the leading competition economists in Chile by Who’s Who Legal.

In addition to his role at the PUC, Prof. Juan Pablo-Montero is Associate Researcher at the Complex Engineering Systems Institute (ISCI). His research focuses on the areas of industrial organization and resource economics and he has published papers in top economic journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Theory and Rand Journal of Economics. Prof. Montero has advised on several significant competition cases in Chile, related to collusion, merger control and abuse of dominance across a diverse range of industries, both for the competition authority and corporations. He has also testified before the Court of the Defence of Competition in Chile. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. He was recognized by El Mercurio as Economist of the Year in 2007 and has been included as a competition expert in Who’s Who Legal for several years.

Jorge Padilla, Senior Managing Director of Compass Lexecon EMEA commented: “Compass Lexecon’s further expansion into Latin America ensures our clients in the region will benefit from exceptional economic analysis and advice from renowned local experts with a mix of industry, agency and academic experience and access to an unmatched global network to support them in complex legal and regulatory matters.”

[1] Compass Lexecon Chile is not owned by Compass Lexecon LLC or any of Compass Lexecon’s affiliated entities and is solely responsible for its acts and omissions.