Colun will decide a 19m-litre supplier's continued membership
Agrícola Las Mercedes has been part of Colun since 1990. In March, companies linked to the Köster family sold all the agricultural company's social rights to five other companies. Colun began an exclusion procedure after the transfer was completed without prior approval from the cooperative, according to the information released on the case.
Las Mercedes disputes that basis. It says the cooperative member remains the same legal entity and that there has been no change to the farms, livestock, milk production or delivery arrangements. Those are the positions of the parties in an unresolved dispute and have not been definitively settled by a court.
The company has also taken the matter to Chile's Tribunal for the Defence of Free Competition, known as the TDLC. It accused Colun and certain members of an alleged “boycott” intended to remove it from the market. The allegation is part of Las Mercedes's submission to the tribunal and has not been judicially established.
Las Mercedes asked the TDLC to suspend Colun's internal exclusion process temporarily. On September 16th, the tribunal rejected that request, saying the material submitted did not provide sufficient grounds for the measure. Colun's internal procedure was therefore allowed to continue.
The tribunal did, however, partly accept a separate request concerning the disclosure of information held by certain cooperative members. A hearing on that issue is scheduled for October 14th. The TDLC proceedings will thus continue regardless of the decision taken by Colun's members on Friday, meaning the vote will determine the company's membership status but not necessarily end the wider dispute.
Colun is Chile's largest recipient of milk, while Las Mercedes is among its higher-volume suppliers. The producer operates in the Los Ríos region and has about 1,200 milking cows. Its annual deliveries of roughly 19m litres would need a different industrial destination if it left Colun, while the cooperative would have to reorganise part of its supply. The case therefore concerns the allocation of a significant volume within one of Chile's main dairy regions.
