Indecopi: official involved in Bimbo case suspends her position as manager at SNI

The National Society of Industries (SNI) reported that Silvia Hooker, a member of Indecopi’s Specialized Chamber for the Defense of Competition (SDC), suspended her activities as Manager of International Affairs of the institution. This, after the irregular favor of this court to the bakery Bimbo was known, which in 2019 did not consign the warning with octagons for trans fats in its product ‘white bread without borders’.

Through a statement, the SNI categorically stated that “it has not had or does not have any interference in the appointments of State officials”, alluding to Hooker’s appointment to the decision-making body of Indecopi, which has autonomy from the PCM and its administrative sphere, occurred during the government of former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and his Prime Minister Fernando Zavala, in 2017.

In this sense, the industrial union said that the questioned official had already served since 2002 as a member of different Indecopi instances, twelve years before assuming the International Affairs Management at the SNI in 2014.

“As the president of Indecopi has declared, our institution is awaiting the result of the consultation on the possible conflict of interest carried out by Indecopi before the Technical Secretariat of the Instructional Bodies of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (PCM) ”, Remarked the SNI.

Bimbo case: What happened at Indecopi?

The Chamber Specialized in Defense of Competition of the Tribunal of the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) annulled a sanction against the company Panificadora Bimbo del Perú SA for marketing white bread without the advertising warning “Contains trans fats: Avoid their consumption ”, Despite the fact that the product did have these oils for Peruvian law.

In July 2019, the highest body that watches over the health of consumers warned that Bimbo’s borderless white bread product, sold in the Wong chain, did not have the trans fat warning on its packaging, so it violated the Healthy Eating Law. The fine ordered by the Commission for the Supervision of Unfair Competition arrived in January 2021.

However, on September 21, the Specialized Chamber for the Defense of Competition of the Indecopi Court, made up of Silvia Hooker, also manager of International Affairs of the National Society of Industries (SNI), surprisingly decided to lift the fine considering that the Peruvian law and the Manual of Advertising Warnings “do not require parameters for trans fats.” Instead, it applied guidelines from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).