Companies supplying the government with essential products during the pandemic must pay extra attention to their negotiations and pricing.

Players in the pharmaceutical and medical industries are under scrutiny in Brazil for increasing their prices in a "non-reasonable and disproportionate way” in relation to product demand as Covid-19 spreads in the country, the competition authority's top investigator, Alexandre Cordeiro, told MLex.

Petrochemical giant Braskem, a Petrobras-Odebrecht joint-venture, is the first company under a leniency deal in Brazil to have its compliance program certificated by independent auditors.

Peru recently initiated Latin America's first antitrust program aimed at fighting cartels by rewarding individuals who blow the whistle on anticompetitive conduct.

Unilateral conduct will continue to be a priority for the Brazilian competition authority's investigatory unit for the next two years, the agency's top investigator told MLex in a recent interview, citing a probe into Google's alleged uses of mobile-device operating system Android as one of the agency's most important cases involving digital markets.

The Peruvian competition authority plans to help draw up an antitrust policy aimed at reducing barriers to entry, business bureaucracy and price-fixing, as well as to implement a pre-merger notification system.

The Peruvian competition authority has submitted a formal request to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Competition Committee, the agency's head, Ivo pi, told MLex.

The Brazil unit of Colombian on-demand delivery startup Rappi has been targeted in a Brazilian preliminary probe into its use of clients' data to analyze purchasing trends, according to a document seen by MLex.

Google's Brazil unit was given 10 days by the national consumer protection authority to decide whether to settle an investigation into charges it scanned e-mails sent via Gmail without users' consent, according to a document seen by MLex.

AbbVie’s $63 million merger with Allergan is well-positioned for unconditional antitrust clearance in Brazil, MLex has learned.

Brazilian subsidiaries of Pfizer, Celgene, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and UCB were asked by the national competition authority reviewing the AbbVie-Allergan deal whether there are close substitutes for medicines to treat Crohn’s disease, noninfectious uveitis and ulcerative colitis.

Brazil faces an emergency visit by global experts on bribery next month following concerns about political interference in the country’s attempts to stamp out corruption, MLex has learned.

Malaysian carrier Malindo Air has said that two former employees of a third-party e-commerce service provider in India were responsible for stealing customer data that were later found to have been leaked online.

The deal between drugmakers Pfizer and Aspen Pharmacare should be approved by the Brazilian antitrust agency, according to a federal court ruling seen by MLex. The deadline suspension the agency declared for the case until its governing body resumes activities should also be voided, the judge said.

elecom operator Telefônica Brasil, which operates under the brand Vivo, is facing a data-protection lawsuit in Brazil, according to documents seen by MLex. Prosecutors in the Federal District have asked a court to urgently prohibit the company from commercializing a geolocation product and to order it to produce a data-protection impact assessment.

Although internationally backed commissions that pursue corruption cases in Guatemala and Honduras are set to disband in coming months, their successes in prosecuting officials will leave a legacy that the countries can build upon, a former Guatemalan prosecutor said.

Walmart saw its plans to buy crowdsourced, on-demand delivery marketplace Cornershop MX potentially go down the drain with the Mexican competition authority's decision to block the deal because it would likely undermine companies operating in the same markets.

Google has been targeted in a Brazilian antitrust probe over its alleged use of the Android operating system to dominate the mobile device market, MLex has learned.

The Brazilian government wants to ensure that the country’s data-protection authority will have directors with varying profiles and experiences, a senior official from the Ministry of Economy told MLex.

The Facebook Brasil preliminary probe by federal prosecutors looking into allegations of improper collection of data in Brazil has been upgraded to a formal inquiry, according to documents seen by MLex.

The Brazilian Ministry of Justice has recommended public attorney Vinicius Klein and economics professor Leonardo Bandeira Rezende to fill two of the councilor vacancies upcoming this year at Brazil's competition authority.

Decisions on which data protection rules will be enforced in Brazil and a model for the supervising agency are still far from certain, as lawmakers this week offered amendments to the December presidential decree creating the authority.

Sicpa, a Swiss company operating in the authentication of banknotes and traceability markets, is the target of an anticorruption probe in Brazil, MLex has learned. In addition to the administrative investigation, one of its former executives is being tried on criminal charges. Both cases involve the alleged payment of millions of dollars in bribes to secure a contract with the Brazilian Mint.

Greek shipping companies Aegean Group and Tsakos Group have been dragged into the Brazilian corruption scandal involving the country's state-controlled oil company, Petróleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras.

Brazilian authorities have implicated Anglo-Swiss company Glencore in their far-reaching corruption probe related to state-controlled Petróleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras. Court documents seen by MLex show that retail trader and broker of marine fuels Ocean Connect Marine — wholly owned by Glencore — made 121 payments to an offshore company controlled by two Greek citizens who acted as intermediaries in negotiations with Petrobras officials.