CADE invests in technology and innovation to offer agile and quality public services

The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) constantly allocates human and financial resources to promote innovation and digital transformation in public service. Over the last three years, more than BRL 35 million have been invested in technology, information security, and innovation to strengthen competition policy in the country. This helps CADE to provide quality services to the Brazilian people, with speed and flexibility, and bring society closer to its work.

According to Vinicius Eloy dos Reis, Coordinator-General of the Information Technology Unit at CADE, around 30% of the agency's annual budget is allocated to project to digitise more of its services.

According to Paulo Eduardo Oliveira, Head of CADE's Management Office, this is because technological innovation is a component of the authority's organisational culture. Its importance is so central that CADE has a digital transformation plan and an IT master plan to help coordinate its actions in these areas.

"With the IT master plan, we can validate resources used in IT, cut down on waste, invest in what is more relevant, and optimise spending and services", he said.

The topics of technology and innovation are addressed in CADE's Strategic Plan for 2021–2024. One of the plan's objectives is "promoting innovation and digital transformation". Hence, the agency laid down initiatives to adopt digital platforms, which allows the provision of better public services to all citizens in an uncomplicated manner. Additionally, the objective includes initiatives for innovating in services, tools, methods, work processes, regulations, and the dissemination of a culture of innovation.

Main efforts

One of the projects outlined in the strategic plan is an online digital questionnaire, launched in May 2021. The tool aims at expediting and facilitating the collection of market information for the analyses of mergers, violations, and the publication of market studies.

Another relevant resource launched last year is the Case Law Search Tool, which consolidates the authority's institutional memory and provides more transparency to its actions, positions, and policies. Its user-friendly design splits CADE's available information into six categories, namely case law, expert opinions, guidelines and publications, legislation, news, and appellate decisions of the Federal Court of Accounts. Moreover, it includes a number of filters to further refine searches.

Amongst the new resources, Mr dos Reis draws attention to an artificial intelligence antitrust tool named DEIA, developed to help case analysis by giving access to extant government databases. "It is a very innovative project that offers digital methods to facilitate the assessment of mergers and violations and automatize work processes that have so far been conducted manually", says Mr dos Reis.

In carrying out these endeavours, CADE partnered with a number of bodies: IBRAC, a Brazilian private institute for competition, consumer affairs, and international trade; OAB, the Brazilian Bar Association; CEDES, a think tank that researches legal, economic, and social matters; and the University of Brasília.

Digital CADE

Since 2018, the Brazilian antitrust body has carried out the project CADE Digital, with the purpose of facilitating service provision by digital means. One of its products is a system that issues payment bills to collect the fees for CADE's offered services.

Initially, the tool only allowed payments through bank-issued invoices, a type of invoice issued by financial institutions and paid via bar codes. Now, fees can be paid electronically through a system called PagTesouro, which accepts credit and debit cards and instant paying platforms. Moreover, a new feature expected for the second half of 2022 will allow fines and financial contributions imposed by the authority to be paid through the same system.

The project also includes the app CADE Mobile, available for Android and iOS devices, which allows users to interact with the authority's services more easily.

As for the future, Mr dos Reis points to a policy that is increasingly based on data. "CADE has explored cooperation agreements as a way to share data and use public databases with the aim of developing data analysis tools. In addition, through its Open Data Plan, the authority is making more of its data available, which is in line with the principle of government transparency. This creates innovation and knowledge for the government, market, and academia", he stressed.