OREANDA-NEWS. May 04, 2012. A delegation of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) led by Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovsky, had a meeting with the leadership of Brazilian Competition Policy System: Olavo Chinaglia, President, the Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE), Antonio Silveira, the Secretary of the Secretariat for Economic Monitoring of the Ministry of Finances (SEAE/MF), and Vinicius Carvalho, the Secretary of the Secretariat of Economic Law, the Ministry of Justice of the Federative Republic of Brazil, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The meeting took place at the 11th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN) in Rio-de-Janeiro, organized by Brazilian Competition Policy System (BCPS).

Andrey Tsarikovsky praised excellent professional organization of the ICN Conference.

Also Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS invited the leaders of Brazilian Competition Policy System to take part in the forthcoming Competition Day in Russia.

The Heads of Brazil’s competition authorities informed Russian colleagues about future reforms of competition law and reorganization of competition authorities.

The parties expressed confidence in maintaining warm working relations between Russian and Brazilian competition authorities developed under the framework of the Agreement on Cooperation in the field of competition policy between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil (2001) and the Programme of Cooperation between FAS and Brazil’s competition authorities for 2012-2013.

Reference:

Brazilian Competition Policy System comprises three separate bodies responsible for applying and complying with the competition law:

1. The Administrative Council for Economic Defence, the Ministry of Justice of the Federative Republic of Brazil (CADE);

2. The Secretariat of Economic Law, the Ministry of Justice of the Federative Republic of Brazil (SDE);

3. The Secretariat for Economic Monitoring of the Ministry of Finances of the Federative Republic of Brazil (SEAE).

The three authorities are not subordinate; each organization is responsible for particular issues within the system:

1. SEAE provides advisory opinions, first of all, on economic aspects of mergers and anticompetitive investigations.

2. SDE also provides opinions on transactions under control of economic concentration, but concentrates more on legal aspects of transactions. If anticompetitive behavior is established, SDE initiates and conducts investigations, including “dawn raids”. SDE also considers leniency applications, from negotiations to collecting and analyzing all submitted evidence. When an investigation is completed, SDE gives an opinion and forwards the case to CADE for a final decision. Under the law, SDE must transfer the case to CADE to make a final decision irrespective of whether an anticompetitive behavior was exposed, and also irrespective of which party approached CADE.

3. CADE is an independent federal body; this is the only body that can pass final administrative decisions on transactions as part of control of economic concentration and anticompetitive investigations. CADE is led by President and six Commissioners; decisions are made by majority vote.

CADE also comprises the Office of the Prosecutor General, which gives additional advisory opinions on the cases on mergers and anticompetitive behavior. Its most important task, however, is to represent CADE in all judicial proceedings when CADE decisions are appealed.