The week at a glance...Americas

Ottawa

Chocolate cartel alleged: Canadian authorities have charged Nestlé, Mars, and Hershey with conspiring to fix the price of chocolate in Canada. The Competition Bureau said Hershey Canada had cooperated with the investigation in exchange for lenient treatment, while Mars Canada and Nestlé Canada planned to put up a vigorous defense. Authorities say senior chocolate executives from rival firms met secretly in coffee shops and restaurants to set prices. Cadbury Adams Canada, which was also implicated, blew the whistle on the alleged scheme and has not been charged. Fines could reach $10 million per company; it’s unclear how much each is alleged to have made on the deal.

Coca, Ecuador

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Oil slick heads for Amazon: An oil spill from a damaged Ecuadoran pipeline has already reached Peru and is oozing downstream toward the Amazon River Basin in Brazil. Brazilian authorities have already declared a state of alert. Some 12,000 barrels of oil leaked into Ecuador’s Coca River two weeks ago, polluting drinking water in the town of Coca before continuing on to the Napo River, which crosses into Peru. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa apologized to Peru “for the problems we have caused.” Ecuador’s oil industry has had numerous environmental problems. In 2011, the courts ruled that U.S. oil firm Chevron should pay more than $18 billion in compensation to indigenous tribes for dumping millions of tons of waste on their land; Chevron disputes the finding.

Buenos Aires

Home fans only: Argentina has banned all fans of visiting teams from attending soccer games after a fan was killed by police at a game this week in the city of La Plata. After hundreds of fans of visiting team Lanus joined in a brawl at an Estudiantes game, police fired rubber bullets, killing a Lanus fan-—the latest of the more than 70 soccer fans killed at games in Argentina since 2000. Security Minister Ricardo Casal said police would no longer use rubber bullets at sports events. But he also announced the ban on away fans, saying that patrolling games was a waste of police resources. “They should be policing the neighborhoods,” he said, “not stopping fights between football fans.”