The Superintendence of Companies, through its External Circular No. 100-000003 of 23 April 2024 (hereinafter the “Circular”), extended the deadlines for the Chambers of Commerce and Foreign Non-Profit Entities (in its acronym in Spanish “ESALs”) to implement the Integral Self-Control and Risk Management System of money laundering, terrorism financing and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and Business Transparency and Ethics Programs. The new deadline is on 31 May 2025.

In a recent decision, the Superintendence of Companies determined that an Excel-based risk matrix of the Self-Control and Integral Management System of Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing and Financing of the Proliferation of matrixes and of the Business Transparency and Ethics Program was insufficient because it did not allow to individualize, measure, assess and mitigate the risks identified.

The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce through Resolution No. 17526 of 2024 established the new fees for merger control procedures applicable during 2024. The parties must pay the applicable fee depending on the type of procedure: fast track notification, pre-assessment request phase I or pre-assessment request phase II. These new fees will be effective as of the date of publication of the resolution and the amount must be paid prior to the filing of the application before the SIC.

On 21 March 2024, the National Government issued the Decree 390 of 2024, by which it established the procedure for granting the Leniency Program in transnational bribery and corruption (“Leniency Program”) matters. Under the Leniency Program, it is possible to obtain full or partial immunity from possible sanctions for corruption and transnational bribery. In order to obtain the benefits of the Leniency Program, the company must provide relevant information on the aspects of the commission of such acts and the benefits obtained.

In the last few days, the Superintendence of Companies ( “SoC”) has begun to invite various companies under its surveillance and control to participate, on a voluntary basis, in a diagnostic exercise on the implementation of sustainable practices. This is in accordance with Chapter XV of the Basic Legal Circular of the SoC: “Administrative Recommendations for the Submission of the Sustainability Report”.

The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce, the sole authority for competition protection in Colombia, issued a Guide to Provide Orientation in the Implementation of Competition Compliance Programs. Although the Guide has a doctrinal scope and does not impose obligations, its publication allows the market to understand the vision that the SIC has on the relevance of these types of programs, the benefits of implementing them, and the key elements that they should contain and develop. In this way, the SIC highlights the value of these programs as a mechanism for the prevention and early detection of anticompetitive conduct.

In one of its latest decisions, the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce recognized that the implementation of compliance programs in competition matters might be considered a mitigation factor in the graduation of an eventual sanction. Recently, the SIC has pronounced the importance of these programs, imposing them as behavioral remedies in merger control procedures, as well as in decisions regarding anti-competitive practices. Specifically, in Resolution 22645 of 2022, the SIC imposed remedies to the transaction between two companies, imposing as a behavioral obligation within the companies the implementation of an Antitrust compliance program.

On 24 January 2022, the Colombian President issued Decree 092 of 2022, modifying the structure of the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce and assigned new functions to the different offices of this entity. Within the modifications, particularly noteworthy is the creation of the Compliance Department, which is part of the Deputy of Competition Protection, and the Habeas Data Department, which is part of the Deputy of Personal Data Protection.

The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) established the thresholds that will be taken into account to determine whether there is an obligation to undertake a merger control procedure during the year 20221. For this purpose, through Resolution No. 83304 of 22 December 2021, the SIC determined that those economic integrations whose participants, individually or jointly, have total assets or operating income equal to or greater than COP 57,322,387,083.44 (USD 14,398,413.292) must be subject of merger control.

On 12 November 2021, an administrative judge confirmed a sanction of the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) on an employee involved in a company dawn raid — Hernando Rodríguez (general manager of Roa Florhuila).