OREANDA-NEWS. On 26th February 2014, in Paris, the Administrative Council for Economic Defence of the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil (CADE), in the person of CADE President, Vinicius Marques de Carvalho, and the Federal Antimonopoly Service, in the person of Deputy Head of the FAS Russia, Andrey Tsyganov, signed 2014-2015 Cooperation Programme.

Cooperation between Russian antimonopoly authority and Brazil’s system of competition policy started in 1999.

In 2001, the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil signed an Agreement on Cooperation in the field of competition policy that determined the main areas of cooperation between competition authorities of the two countries.

Participation of Brazil representatives in the 6th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN) in Moscow in 2007 was an important step in developing bilateral cooperation.

On 1 - 2 September 2009, in Kazan, a delegation of the competition authorities of Brazil took part in the First International BRICS Competition Conference.

In their turn, representatives of Russian antimonopoly body repeatedly visited Brazil to learn about experience of competition policy enforcement in Brazil and discuss the issues of bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

“Brazil is one of the countries, cooperation with which in the field of competition protection is exercised on the basis of high-level agreements”, pointed out Andrey Tsyganov. “Our countries have many similar economic and social problems that we think can be resolved through developing competition and active antimonopoly policy. Close interaction between competition authorities is exercised not only on bilateral basis but also under the framework of international formations, such as BRICS and ICN”.

FAS was elected a co-chair of ICN Cartel Working Group. The Programme of actions for the next two years is already drafted.