Certain manufacturing companies are required to report on a monthly basis the current prices of all of their products within the first five working days of each calendar month.
Last March 14, 2014 the Secretary of Trade (the “ST”) issued Resolution No. 29, published in the Official Gazette on March 18, 2014 (the “Resolution 29”).
Resolution 29 approved a “Price Reporting Regime” by means of which, among other provisions, manufacturing companies of inputs and final goods that have had total annual sales (1) greater than AR$ 183 million in 2013 and distribution and/or commercializing companies of inputs and final goods that have had total annual sales greater than AR$ 250 million are required to report on a monthly basis to the Secretary of Domestic Trade (the “SDT”) the current prices of all of their products within the first five (5) working days of each calendar month.
According to the paragraphs of Resolution 29, the Price Reporting Regime is intended to create a regime of “final goods and inputs for the production that will allow access to an updated and constant knowledge of them in its different stages of production, distribution and commercialization”. Furthermore, it is ruled that the information sent in compliance to the regime "will be private and confidential, for the exclusive use of the SECRETARY OF TRADE, and will be destined to the analysis and development of public policies to ensure compliance of the objectives provided in the normative quoted, without affecting in any way the free competition of the different actors in the argentine economy.”(2)
In regards to its implementation, the information will have to be submitted through the Informational System of Price Reporting Regime (3) (SIRIP – pursuant to its initials in Spanish) operated by the ST and created by Regulation No. 6/2014 of the SDT that ruled the mentioned Resolution 29 on March 26, 2014.
Pursuant to that Resolution, the companies reached by the informational duty will have to report in its first submission (the first working days of April) the current prices of all its products, including the months of December 2013 and January, February and March 2014. As set forth above, the required information will have to be reported on a monthly basis, within the first five (5) working days of each calendar month. That information will have to be submitted through the SIRIP system and using the corresponding form of affidavit specifically prepared for manufacturing companies of inputs and final goods, distribution companies of inputs and final goods and commercializing companies of inputs and final goods.
In this sense, it is worth highlighting that the forms created both for the manufacturing companies and for the distribution companies do not differ from each other and include the minimum information required, namely: a) CUIT number (Tax ID) of the company; b) Product name; c) EAN code or equivalent sector of the product; and d) Price per weight unit, quantity or product measurement. But apart from these requirements the ST requires to detail a list of bonuses and discounts of products per client, which is a requirement that is not included in the affidavit form model applicable to the commercializing companies.
Due to the fact that the attached regarding bonuses and discounts have slots for eight (8) clients, it is not entirely clear if this form is merely a model of the one that will actually be used electronically – and possibly may be expanded to include the totality of clients of the company – or if it is the final model and it could be interpreted that the clients to be mentioned are those "main clients" of the companies involved. In this sense, while the web site created by Section 1 of Regulation No. 6/2014 is not available to date, it remains uncertain in which way this informational duty will be implemented.
Finally, once correctly completed with the provision of the required information, the SIRIP system will issue an electronic record that will certify the compliance with the “Price Reporting Regime”.
