Four bills currently are pending in the 16th Session of the House of Representatives. The two leading bills similarly seek the creation of a new body (the Fair Trade Commission) to oversee the implementation of the law. However, they differ in some of the notification and disclosure requirements for merging companies. The version of Congressman Rufus Rodriguez (HB 0388), in particular, is the Consolidated Version – or the version that contains the amendments and revisions after deliberations with the Committee on Trade. This Consolidated Version already passed second reading in the House of Representatives last session, but was suddenly stalled prior to third and final reading because of various questions from other members of the House of Representatives.
The version of the Speaker of the House, Sonny Belmonte (HB11330) is also considered one of the stronger bills, mainly because the House Speaker has recently stated that he will be pushing for an antitrust law to be passed this session.
Both leading bills are similar, in that they seek the creation of a new body (the Fair Trade Commission) to oversee the implementation of the law. They differ in some of the notification and disclosure requirements for merging companies.
It remains unclear at this stage whether any of these bills will be adopted in 2014.
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