Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio

Gloria Isabel Ortiz Castañeda -  Corporate supervision and Product Security Coordinator

On April 13th, 2018, at Istanbul (Turkey), the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) of Colombia presented its official postulation to the 2019-2020 International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network (ICPEN) Presidency with a government plan that foresees the following key aspects:

1. Consumer Education. 
2. Collaboration between authorities at national and international level to strengthen consumer’s protection. 
3. A new perspective of enforcement through co-regulation and self-regulation.

During the speech, important aspects and advances of Colombia in consumer’s protection policy were outlined, such as the penalties and most common typologies according to the different economic sectors. In total, in the last 6 years, the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce has imposed fines for more than $28 million dollars, being misleading advertising and deceptive information the most common typologies. 

With thrill and joy, we received the official announcement that our Postulation for the Presidency of ICPEN for 2019 – 2020 was accepted. This is an immense honor that the SIC assumes with the commitment and rigor that it takes, our goal is to provide significant ideas and results to ICPEN that allow us strengthen the consumer’s protection enforcement worldwide. 

As a result, Colombia will take part of the Advisory Group of the ICPEN Zambian Presidency (2018-2019) and will lead, alongside Canada, the “Working Group on Consumer Education”, which aims to generate tools that create accurate consumer communication to structure more efficient educational campaigns and encourage, throughout all members, these initiatives.

In this context, we will also participate in the Zambian Presidency as members of the “Working Group on Marketing Practices Directed to Children in the Digital World”, which has being leaded by Norway and that aims to explore the impact of digital marketing on children.

The Colombian Presidency of the most relevant forum on consumer protection worldwide -  which aims to create a support and collaboration block to counter violations to consumer’s rights - undoubtedly constitutes a big challenge that as a country we assume at the most proper time of our national and institutional history.

We have properly protect the Colombian consumers, which has created valuable experiences that we are ready to share with other jurisdictions in order to learn more from our international pairs and apply those experiences for our people’s prosperity and welfare.