LatamList – The Fiscalía Nacional Económica (FNE) in Chile recently approved Uber’s acquisition of Cornershop. However, the deal is still waiting for the green light from Mexican regulators.
In October 2019, Uber announced that it would take a 51% stake in the Mexican-Chilean startup for $450M. Initially, the regulators were concerned that Uber’s acquisition of Cornershop would limit competition among the country’s online delivery services. Therefore, on December 11th, 2019 Chile’s antitrust regulator initiated an investigation that developed in two stages.
During the first stage, the FNE carried out investigations to determine the competitive risk of the operation. In the second stage, the FNE did a deep analysis of the market, the effects of the operations, and the efficiencies each party could present.
Additionally, since Chile declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 during the last stage, the FNE extended its analysis to evaluate whether the contingency would affect the transaction and the market.
During this stage, there was a spike in demand for supermarket products and delivery services, and competitors accelerated their expansion plans. In a tweet, Oskar Hjertonsson, founder and CEO at Cornershop, expressed the pressure they were facing due to the regulatory uncertainty.
Finally, the FNE came to the conclusion that the operation does not substantially reduce competition. Therefore the deal cannot negatively affect the terms of use of last-mile services in Chile in terms of access, prices, quantity or quality,
Read more on FNE’s website or on Reuters.
Learn more about the Uber-Cornershop saga.
