Peru’s Indecopi: What to expect in market regulations this year?

Are you considering Peru as a potential market for your business? Are you attracted to the stability of the Peruvian currency? Yes, this could be a promising sign of an ideal market for your business. However, Peruvian purchasing power is just one factor in determining the probability of your enterprise’s success in this country. Also, you must understand how regulations in this territory could constrain or boost your revenue.

In this article, I will explain how the 2024 policies of the National Institute for Competition and Intellectual Property (INDECOPI), a key regulatory authority in the country, may affect your business this year. 

Foto de las Asociación Peruana de Consumidores disponible en Flickr

What are Indecopi’s areas of work?

To fully understand the relevance of this governmental body, it’s crucial to know in which areas Indecopi operates. And, as its name suggests, this agency is involved in the following areas:

·         Competition and antitrust: Indecopi regulates competition in the Peruvian markets, issuing rulings on advertising and other commercial practices that could harm fair competition. Furthermore, Indecopi must approve or reject mergers and acquisitions to prevent antitrust operations.  

·         Consumer protection: Indecopi’s role includes hearing, investigating, and resolving consumer claims. It also provides consumer guidance in defending their rights.

·         Intellectual Property (IP) registration, promotion, and enforcement: Indecopi oversees the protection of creator rights. This includes registering works, solving controversies, and imposing sanctions. It also educates the public about IP rights.   

·         Bureaucratic barriers: This institution ensures that law and other governmental rules may not impose irrational or unlawful obstacles to citizens' lives and market activities.

·         Bankruptcy proceedings: Indecopi oversees that debtors and creditors solve their matters efficiently and at a lower cost.

As you can see, Indecopi plays a crucial role in shaping commercial operations in the Peruvian market. This is likely why Peruvian top executives consider this institution one of the top three regulatory authorities.

An Overview of 2024 Peru’s Indecopi

It's important to review 2023 to understand the current regulatory landscape. First, a new chief was named in Indecopi: Karin Caceres, who replaced Julian Palacin.

During that year, the institution addressed the rights of 557,000 Peruvian consumers and concluded 115,000 claims; of those, 38% were in consumer favor.

Additionally, the agency analyzed 14 mergers or acquisitions valued at 4.78 million soles. It also investigated cases involving commercial collusion practices related to bottled water, driver’s license printing, and HR in the construction sector. Indecopi also conducted market studies on disposable suction bags government acquisitions, fintech, and the Peruvian dairy industry.

Moreover, the regulatory authority handled 282 unfair competition cases involving COVID tests, other sanitary products, meal products, and land transport.

Equally important, Indecopi successfully promoted the takedown of 4,700 bureaucratic obstacles (63.4% in regional areas), saving 139.9 million soles for the Peruvian economy. The most notable case was the allowance of nutritional octagonal stickers on imported food products.

The agency also received 246 applications to start bankruptcy proceedings, including those from Peruvian Air Line SAC and Gasoducto Sur Peruano S.A. 

Regarding IP, Indecopi registered 2,914 works from authors (55.6% of which were literary works), 1,954 inventions (35% were patents), and 33,462 distinctive signs (43.8% were brands). A key development was a reduction of 25% in registration costs.

Now let’s look at what happened in 2024:

Indecopi’s institutional changes

A key change was the replacement of Karin Caceres by Alberto Villanueva as chief of Indecopi just one year after she was named in the position. One reason for Caceres's departure was a shortage of public officials in many areas of the institution, and concerns about her close ties with former Peruvian Prime Minister Alberto Otárola, raising questions about the autonomy of the agency.

However, by November, Villanueva announced that 99% of vacant positions had already been filled. Peruvian Congress also attempted to increase Indecopi productivity and address the lack of public officials by approving a law to raise the top of salaries and the number of work sessions for temporary officials but the legislation was rejected due to concerns about increasing public spending.

Main market regulations

Regarding Indecopi’s market regulations in 2024, these were the most important:

Antitrust

Concerning antitrust, this year, the agency approved the acquisition of Grupo Chema (a main construction Peruvian company) by the Swiss firm Sika, with conditions such as the sale or licensing of some brands. The acquisition of public electric company Enel by China Southern Power Grid International was allowed too with some constraints.

In the same way, Indecopi approved the joint venture of Pangea LuxCo, Telefónica Latinoamérica, and Entel Peru for the fiber optics market. The conditions imposed by the authority were related to the capital composition, the sale of some assets, and the reduction of non-compete clauses. However, this operation was canceled by the companies, later.

In contrast, for the first time at all, Indecopi blocked the acquisition of Agrícola del Chira by Agroaurora, citing antitrust concerns in the sugar market in regions like Lambayeque, La Libertad, and Piura.

Advertising

Last year, Indecopi focused on digital advertising, publishing a new Guide to Advertise as an Influencer. This document teaches content creators how to disclose advertising in organic content and regulated products such as alcohol or betting. It also provides advice on how to respect third parties' intellectual property.

Competition

A key competition case last year was Indecopi’s decision involving Claro, Telefónica, and Win, three major telecommunications companies in Peru. Claro and Telefónica accused Win of unfair competition for an advertising campaign related to his fiber optics service. The campaign claimed that other internet services are slow and used a rat as a poor service symbol.

Indecopi ruled that the campaign did not constitute unfair competition because it did not directly or indirectly refer to the plaintiffs. Therefore, there was no denigration of their image and no undue comparison between the three services. It was neither misleading nor illegal advertising.

On the other hand, the authority also published two competition reports. One analyzes government contracts to buy medicines from foreign companies during the 2020-2023 health emergency. The document advocates for improvements in the purchasing process, with suggestions on better deadlines, competition analysis, and sanitary registration.

The other report concerns direct negotiation contracts with Perupetro on the upstream oil sector, calling for better practices to promote transparency, nondiscriminatory behavior, and fair competition in the public tender process.

It is important to note that in the first days of 2025, Indecopi launched an investigation into the Chinese dumping of products like steel pipes, zippers, and wash basins.

Copyright

Indecopi introduced a Copyright Infringers Registry, where anyone can check, free of charge, whether a person or a business is an IP infringer. It also details the sanctions imposed. Additionally, Indecopi enabled the Works Virtual Registry for software registration, along with a platform that provides information about patents and industrial design.

Trademarks

Last year, Indecopi upheld its commitment to protecting Peruvian trademarks. This way, it rejected the opposition from renowned brands such as Carolina Herrera against the registration of “Ana Herrera”, TikTok against “Tiki Tok”, and McDonald’s against “Mc Happy Bar”.

And, besides the Peruvian press informed that “capibara” was a registered trademark owned by a Chinese businessman, the agency cleared the air by saying that this application was still under review.

A significant achievement of Indecopi was the registration of Maras Salt as a geographical indication, the first of its kind in Peru. This protects the production of 633 family producers from the region of Cusco.

Piracy is a crucial topic in all trademark efforts, and in Peru is the same. During 2024, Indecopi was part of “Operación 404”, an international operation with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and the UK that blocked access to 400 illegal streaming web domains based in Peru.

Consumer’s rights

As in other countries, discrimination and disability were significant topics for Indecopi’s consumer protection efforts in 2024, as demonstrated by the publication of the Guide of Good Practices Against Discrimination by Disability in Consumption and Advertising. The authority also imposed sanctions against a school, a bank, and a transportation company for discriminating against individuals with disabilities.

Another sector sanctioned was show production, particularly for overselling tickets for concerts or the cancellation of events.

In early 2025, the institution introduced a draft Transgenic Food Label Regulation, which proposes that food products containing genetically modified components must display a label stating “Genetically Modified Food” or “GM Food.”

Bureaucratic barriers

According to a press release from Indecopi, in 2024, the institution achieved the takedown of 22,000 bureaucratic barriers. This saved more than 300,000 soles and prevented irrational and unlawful obstacles imposed on land transportation services, restaurants and bars, and real estate companies. Mainly those barriers were related to operating and building licenses, urban development, building safety inspections, transportation authorizations, and obtaining academic degrees.

What to expect in Peruvian market regulations in 2025

Once this was said, what these facts could mean for Peruvian consumers and businesses in Peru? Let’s see each case and what possibly bring 2025:

For consumer

On an institutional matter, the short-term in charge of Indecopi’s heads could bring some instability in the politics and activities of the institution. The issue with public officials was related to the head’s criteria changes, and this directly affected Peruvian consumers, who could not claim the defense of their rights because there was no someone to hear them.

Approval of mergers and acquisitions with conditions and rejection in cases where it is not possible to assure that competition will be preserved, on the contrary, could be considered a good sign for consumers, protecting them from artificial price hikes.

Same for Indecopi watching eye on advertising, mostly if we consider that digital and influencer advertising is very often in Peruvian markets. It also, on government purchases and contracts, improving this way public services for Peruvians.

Indecopi’s efforts to transparency about the legitimacy or origin of some products or services to make informed decisions is the right move in consumer favor. For example, now a person when accessing streaming services or buying food products could decide if convey their interests or not. Consumers with disabilities can now shelter around the new institution policy that protects their rights, too.

For businesses

As for consumers, the instability in Indecopi’s leadership could affect businesses because this could result in less predictable regulatory oversight, altering growth in markets. This, along with the political crisis in Peru, where the reigning government has lost the support of citizens but is trying to maintain power by irregularly naming heads of main agencies in the country and mining its autonomy, is a bad sign. The proximity of the electoral period could even be a major issue.

Another thing that must be observed by businesses is the change in criteria related to antitrust matters: for the first time in history, Indecopi blocked a merger. This could mean the agency has hardened its position following the publication of Law 31112. A switch of position is also obvious regarding digital advertising and could evolve like in Europeans countries.

Something that Indecopi maintains is its position around the protection of Peruvian trademarks, even when in the case of renowned brands. This is also because legal argumentation in many of these cases is poor and makes no reference to this condition in intellectual property.

Remains vital for businesses Indecopi’s vigilance on governmental purchases and contracts. And its work to eliminate legal barriers that could affect normal market activities or to detain piracy expansion in the country.

On the bright side, the agency’s interest in dumping Chinese products could prevent an uneven scenario for exporter or importer businesses. Its progress in the protection of intellectual property must also be recognized.

Another advantage that food, biotech, and agricultural enterprises must watch carefully is the draft for genetically modified food labels. This could require an adjustment in the internal process to adequate it to new regulation if it's approved. You should be aware that transgenetics still has a bad reputation in this country.

Conclusion

In 2024, Indecopi has made significant progress in some areas, such as antitrust, unfair competition, and IP protection. However, the weak spot is the institutional affairs. In any case, businesses and consumers must be prepared for ongoing changes that could impact the regulatory environment in Peru.

Artícle by Vanessa Graos for Andean CA.