Latin America and Caribbean

The Salvadoran Law on Secured Transactions (SLST) has been in force since April 2014 by Decree No 488, which is based on the Organisation of American State´s (OAS) Model Inter-American Law on Secured Transactions. Under Article 88, the SLST clarified that the new national central registry would become operational no later than six months after this law came into force (that is, October 15 2014).The creation of the SLST had an overarching theme: to improve access to credit for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), particularly those involving women-owned businesses and other marginalised groups.

Article 20 of Law 1882 of 2018 was very important for reactivating the financing of the 4G concession road projects, because it clearly stated the guidelines for calculating the termination payment in concession agreements in the case of early termination events caused by a declaration of invalidity. On August 30 2018, the Controller General filed a claim of partial unconstitutionality of the article before the Colombian Constitutional Court, arguing that this article contravened the prohibition of illicit enrichment, among other arguments.

In Brazil, the public enforcement of antitrust infringements is carried out by the Administrative Council for Economic Defence – CADE. Since Law 12,529/2011 was enacted in Brazil, such enforcement has increased considerably, boosted by CADE through the use of leniency and cease-and-desist agreements (known as TCCs).