Uber’s Latin American Antitrust Challenges Regarding its $459M Acquisition of 51% of Cornershop.

In October of 2019 Uber announced the acquisition of a majority ownership of Cornershop, a leading online grocery provider in Latin…

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On October 11, 2019 Uber announced an agreement to acquire majority ownership of Cornershop, a leading online grocery provider in Chile, Mexico, and more recently in Peru, Canada, Brazil and Colombia.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO stated: “We’re excited to partner with the team at Cornershop to scale their vision, and look forward to working with them to bring grocery delivery to millions of consumers on the Uber platform.”

The deal involves a reported $459 million for 51% of Cornershop, a valuation that puts the company in striking distance of achieving unicorn status, the first Chilean technology startup to achieve such a milestone. It’s a rare and laudable feat after the startup raised $31.7 million over the course of four VC funding rounds from firms based in the U.S. (Accel Partners and Jackson Square Ventures), Mexico (ALLVP) and Europe (Creandum), among other early backers.

But this deal has been hampered by antitrust regulators in Latin America, even bef…