Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio

During the last year, the SIC has had a highly active participation in multilateral cooperation scenarios, including ICPEN. In addition to participating in the annual Conference, the SIC leads a working group and actively participates in other working groups of this network.

The International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network (ICPEN) is a membership organization consisting of consumer protection law enforcement authorities from across the globe. Colombia has been a member of ICPEN since October 2013 and from that moment, it has been actively participating and assumed a regional leadership.
The network is led by the Canadian Competition Bureau, who was selected by the members to act as president for the term 2020-2021 and has among his functions to hold two conferences during his term. Due to the difficult situation caused by Covid-19, Canada was forced to hold its conference virtually. The conference was held on November 30 and December 2 and 3, 2020. During the Conference, the reports of the Presidency, the Network Secretariat and each of the different working groups of the network were heard by all ICPEN members. 
It is important to highlight the participation of the SIC in the working group “enforcement during COVID-19”. This working group aims to address some of the most pressing issues that consumer protection authorities face during this time. These issues include common consumer harms, such as misleading treatment claims, imposter scams, deceptive income opportunities, and unfair or deceptive practices related to travel and events, as well as the challenges that enforcement agencies face when working from home. During the ICPEN Conference, the Federal Trade Commission of the USA and the SIC, presented and discussed the main components of this project, including regional webinars and an upcoming data review and evidence gathering sweep.
During the Conference, the SIC also had the opportunity to listen to James Taylor, who is an award-winning entrepreneur, author and inspiring keynote speaker on a global mission to increase productivity, collaboration and accelerate innovation in our digital world. During the last session of the Conference the working group on Artificial Intelligence held a spectacular discussion on the challenges and benefits for consumer protection agencies and the ways in which artificial intelligence is changing our world and introduce some ideas on how it could be used by consumer protection agencies in the future.
The SIC is a highly active and leading member of this network. In fact, the SIC is a member of  the following working groups: Enforcement During Covid-19 (co-leader), Digital Platforms, Enforcement in The Digital Economy, Misleading Environmental Claims and Artificial Intelligence.