Leniency programs in competition law from a comparative approach: development in Spain and Colombia

For more than 25 years, leniency programs around the world have been important tools for competition authorities to detect, break up, and impose fines over agents being part of anticompetitive agreements. The Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Colombia have leniency programs, whose main purposes are strengthening the free competition culture and the protection of their markets. Taking off from the regulations, the purpose of this paper is making a comparative approach between the two jurisdictions. As such, official data, along with study cases, will be presented to show the differences in the development of the same public policy in two different States. The analysis will demonstrate that in Spain the program has consolidated itself, while in Colombia more efforts are needed to achieve this specific goal.