The fight against contraband in the matter of intellectual property

AmCham’s Intellectual Property Committee recently organized an Intellectual Property Summit. This event was primarily focused on intellectual property and its importance in new technologies, but even under this approach, contraband and its importance from the Intellectual Property’s perspective came to light again. Consequently, even with the new ways of doing business, the impact of imports and exports that do not respect intellectual property is high.

To this effect, we had the participation of the current Customs Intendant, Werner Ovalle at this event, who elaborated on the subject and corroborated the approach that the country’s Customs is taking to inspect counterfeit brands.

Alejandro del Valle Partner

Some encouraging data was provided that indicate that there are already investigations under way on this matter as well as some findings on irregular imports that disclosed that the amounts in such products (counterfeit) are in the millions.

The latter is worth mentioning, since at AmCham’s Intellectual Property Committee of which I have been part of for over 15 years, we have been continuously working to ensure that the aforementioned authorities are able to generate joint work protocols through which a culture of intellectual property is achieved in an orderly and coordinated manner in order to be effective, so that in the event of an infringement, authorities are able to quickly coordinate protection for these rights. The latter is very important since, as the phrase goes, “Time is Money.” In the protection of intellectual property time is too valuable and the delay in these actions may cause the damage to be completely irreversible, either because of the bad reputation that a counterfeit product may give to a brand or the direct damage to the consumer by acquiring a product that is harmful to one’s health because it is not “original,” as well as many other examples that may cause serious economic and health implications.

In times when job generation and sustainable development are more and more complex, countries that are unable to protect intellectual property and thus are also unable to promote the development of formal businesses that comply with local regulations and rely largely on their intellectual property, will continue lagging behind development indexes and the results of the best countries where to invest, which is why if it was important before, now it is urgent to generate clear protection policies that go beyond advertising or information campaigns and that may even lead to convictions for infringers. We will continue working at AmCham to promote spaces that allow the generation of policies of compliance with applicable trade regulations, as well as generating more and improved regulations where necessary so that traders can be certain of their intellectual property rights being respected which leads to more and greater foreign investment coming into the country.

Good practices for the prevention of money laundering

Organized crime is relentless and statistics of the increase of its victims and losses worldwide are overwhelming, which demands an open, energetic and forceful fight against money laundering and predicate offenses. Prevention and detection of economic crimes are obligations that multilateral and regulatory bodies clearly dump on organizations (obligated subjects), which one way or another must learn about global standards, local regulations and best practices in risk management.

The implementation of a risk management program of money laundering, terrorism financing and weapons of mass destruction is considered as the best protection and deterrence mechanism, which must include at least the knowledge of counterparties and the compliance officer with an approach based on risks

Marta Cadavid CAMS, CFE, AML | Partner & Consultant at NoFraud Latam LLC

that defines the DNA of the organization and its internal control.

Knowing counterparties is the fundamental pillar to build trade or contractual relationships of trust in order to create value in the organization. Due diligence is an investigative activity that requires investigation techniques to gather information from the largest amount of available resources that allows objective decision-making about the risks counterparties may generate for the corporation.

Aligned with the above, it is fundamental to identify in the process those individuals politically (publicly) exposed and the end beneficiary of transactions as indicated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its Recommendation 12.

The Compliance Officer is more than a luxury, it is a necessity for an industry in order to grow and survive. Their various responsibilities include aligning the corporation with regulatory aspects such as those related to the prevention and detection of money laundering and predicate offenses. Therefore, the Compliance Officer requires a set of skills and in-depth knowledge of the company and internal and external risks, so that jointly with the business units, administration and management, they ensure that contingency plans are appropriate to protect the company against potential risks. On the other hand, the Compliance Officer must have the support of Management and the allocation of both human and economic resources for the correct execution of their responsibilities.

The internal control environment is the reflection of the organizational culture and its DNA which influences the way counterparties view the corporation. Prevention and detection of money laundering, predicating offenses and illicit acts in general must be an attitude rather than a transversal activity that includes in each of the employees a culture of ethics and compliance.

Finally, multilateral and regulating bodies recommend that owners, representatives and executives, by means of corporate responsibility, see beyond regulations and adopt predictive and preventive controls that are modern and effective in order to mitigate risks related to economic crimes and illicit acts that are silently destroying the values of organizations.

Electricity market in Guatemala, a competitive advantage

After the approval of Decree Law 93-96, the General Electricity Law and its regulations, an opportunity to attract local and foreign investment throughout the value chain was opened: Generation, transportation, distribution and marketing.

The law, its regulations, the technical standards of the National Electric Energy Commission (CNEE, acronym in Spanish) and the Commercial Coordination Standards of the Wholesale Market Manager (AMM, acronym in Spanish) ensure free local and regional trade.

Additionally, the creation of the Regional Electricity Market (MEER, acronym in Spanish) established the basis for electricity import and export throughout the Central American region, Panama

Carolina Castellanos Communications and Strategy Director

and Mexico. This gives us the advantage of having energy at competitive prices and minimal power outages.

In Guatemala, 89.26% of the national territory has access to electricity. The remaining percentage requires investment in transmission and distribution in remote areas from some urban centers, but the regulatory framework establishes the conditions to do it.

The energy matrix in Guatemala is mostly from renewable sources. Approximately 70% comes from these resources: Hydraulic, solar, wind, biomass and geothermal. This diversity derives from the enactment of the Law of Incentives for the Development of Renewable Energy Projects, Decree Law number 52-2003 and its regulations, as well as Governmental Agreement number 211-2005. The remaining 30% of electricity generation comes from non-renewable sources such as oil, natural gas, bunkers and coal.

For an investor, it is necessary to compare electricity prices between countries, especially if they are neighbors, in order to estimate their return on investment. This is valid for products and services, however, when planning to make a large investment, such as the one required to expand electricity coverage, generate more electricity or others, it is essential to know the pricing system and the costs involved, beyond those generated by the investment itself, in order to calculate this return and that it is timely according to the interests and plans of the investors involved.

Nevertheless, the comparison between energy prices in the Central American region is not the only factor to define competitiveness. In the case of Guatemala, this comes from the rule of law provided by the regulatory framework and the maturity the electricity market has reached after twenty-six years that Decree Law 93-96 has been valid, which has never been amended.

In conclusion, the electricity market of Guatemala allows you to opt for different configurations and hence, to have access to profitable energy prices to operate.