The Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC), by judgment dated January 16 of this year, rejected the lawsuit filed by Enjoy S.A., Casino del Lago S.A. and Casino de Puerto Varas S.A. (the “Plaintiffs”) against Sun Dreams S.A., Casino de Juegos Puerto Varas S.A. and Casino de Juegos Pucón S.A. (the “Defendants”), parent company and subsidiaries, respectively, without costs.
This case, the origin of which dates back to August 2019, began with a lawsuit by the plaintiffs, who accused the Defendants of anticompetitive conduct and acts of unfair competition.
In particular, it was alleged that the Respondents carried out, in an organized and systematic manner, judicial and administrative actions, as well as de facto actions, with the sole purpose of excluding the Claimants from the relevant markets.
In other words, a hypothesis of abusive litigation or sham litigation to the detriment of the plaintiffs was raised.
In its analysis, the Court for the Defense of Free Competition (TDLC) made it clear that, in order to consider the filing of legal actions in the context of free competition as unlawful, it is necessary to:
1. objectively establish the lack of merit of the action filed.
2. Evaluate whether such action was promoted with an anticompetitive purpose.
3. Determine whether or not a case of unfair competition is configured, in accordance with current regulations.
Therefore, the failure of a legal action does not automatically make it unlawful, unless this is conclusively proven.
In this case, the Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC) concluded that, although the Respondents filed multiple actions, these did not lack objective merit, since they were supported by reasonable arguments.
This reasoning is consistent with the definition of sham litigation adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court, which establishes two fundamental requirements:
1. The claim must lack objective merit, i.e., no reasonable litigant could expect success on the merits of the case.
2. Only if the above is met, should it be assessed whether the unfounded claim masks an attempt to interfere directly with a competitor’s commercial relations through the use of the judicial process as an anti-competitive weapon.
Likewise, the Supreme Court urges the courts not to assume that an action lacks merit only because it was unsuccessful, avoiding falling into a retrospective reasoning, very much in line with the correct conclusions of the Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC).
All the details of this decision in this document:
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