Berkeley Program in Law and Economics

The Dominican Republic is one of the few countries of Latin America that at the moment lacks a Competition Law which would allow it to identify and sanction certain practices that restrict competition. Although the Dominican Constitution consecrates a market economy and prohibits monopolies, and although the Dominican government has made efforts to equip this country with a legal framework to promote and protect competition, the results have been little. The purpose of this article is to analyse the existing regulation of competition of the Dominican Republic, reviewing the social, economic and political context in order to explain the difficulties and the challenges for the establishment of a Competition Law, as well as the legal and economic reasons why these efforts must continue. Finally, some observations are made to the competition Law bill that is currently discussed in the Dominican Congress