Province of Buenos Aires Moves Forward with Enforcement of Supply Law

In the context of the measures established by the Federal Secretariat of Local Commerce to guarantee the regular supply of products to the market through Resolution 100/2020, the Province of Buenos Aires issued Decree 177/2020 by means of which it:

• Created the “Monitoring System of Prices and Supply of Essential Products due to the Sanitary Emergency” (SIMAP for its Spanish acronym) to control the compliance with the obligations provided therein (Section 1).

• Reiterated the supply and maximum prices obligations under Resolution 100/2020 (e.g., price reversal to March 6, 2020, and production level to the maximum of the installed capacity) (Sections. 2, 3 and 4).

• Included new reporting obligations (e.g. sale prices and production and supply levels; price increases and unfair practices) (Section 5).

• Provided causes that exempt from compliance with supply obligations (e.g., force majeure, measures from public authorities’, increase in prices from suppliers) and how to prove them (Section 7).

• Determined that provincial and municipal authorities will enforce its provisions and that violations will be sanctioned under the Supply Law and/or Decree 274/2019 on Fair Trade) (Sections 6, 8 and 9).

Decree 177/2020 was implemented through Resolution 2/2020 (which determined the details for its enforcement) and complemented by Resolution 4/2020 (which created the Registry of Infringers to the Supply Act within the Province of Buenos Aires), both from the Subsecretariat of Commercial Development and Investment Promotion.

In this regard, Decree 251/2020 also forced companies involved in the management of pathogenic wastes and the cleaning of sanitary and hospital elements of the health sector to revert the prices of certain goods and services to their prices on March 6; and authorized the Environmental Authority to control their enforcement, issue complementary regulations and set up a special permit regime for the performance of such activities.

Decree 177/2020 establishes that its provisions will be in force for a 90-day period counted as from March 27, 2020, a greater term than the 30-day period provided in Resolution 100/2020 (Section 12). The possibility of the Province issuing a regulation with a greater scope than that of Resolution 100/2020, as well as the simultaneous enforcement of both (federal and provincial) regimes on the same matter could generate issues that must be analyzed to verify that each government is acting within its enforcement powers and that the content of both regulations is compatible.