The Competition Tribunal dismissed a lawsuit by Reebok Chile S.A. (RCH) against Reebok International Limited (RIL) and Adidas Chile Ltda. (Adidas), for alleged exclusionary and disloyal competition practices.
The Tribunal considered that the defendants’ -who market Adidas products- conducts, consisting in threatening RCH’s clients with confiscation of products acquired to that company, configures disloyal competition, against good faith and with the objective of deviating a rival’s clientele.
However, in this case, it was not proved that these disloyal actions were done with the objective of achieving, maintaining or augmenting a dominant position in the relevant market, since it was neither proved that the defendants had any market power, nor that they could achieve market power by performing the accused conducts.
Furthermore, the Competition Tribunal dismissed RIL’s an Adidas’s counterclaim against RCH, which was based on the accusation that RCH had tried to obstruct sales of Reebok products by Adidas, through abusive legal actions. Given that the conditions that allow considering legal actions as an anticompetitive infraction were not met in this case, the counterclaim was dismissed, and the plaintiffs of this counterclaim had to pay Tribunal costs.