CADE is considered one of the best antitrust agencies worldwide for the eighth consecutive year

The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) was ranked amongst one of the ten best antitrust authorities worldwide for the eighth consecutive year. The award is a result of an annual review carried out by the Global Competition Review (GCR), a British journal specialized in antitrust policy and regulation.

CADE received four out of five possible stars in the GCR ranking for its performance in 2019. According to the release, the main achievements of the Brazilian authority in the last year are related to strengthening its performance in Brazil and abroad, institutional cooperation agenda, advocacy and enforcement initiatives, and investment for training civil servants.

As to cooperation among agencies, GCR highlighted Brazil’s adhesion as an associate member of the Competition Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Brazil’s approval is a recognition of the quality of public antitrust policies developed by the agency in recent years. The journal has also highlighted CADE’s admission as a permanent guest on the Executive Board of the Brazilian Foreign Trade Chamber (Camex) from the Ministry of Economy.

“CADE has established multiple partnerships with different agencies to increase its performance capacity. The agency has also made efforts to achieve institutional excellence in competition defence, cooperating with several national and foreign organisations,” stated GCR.

The British release has also pointed out CADE’s role on debates regarding competition on the market of civil aviation and evaluated the initiative as a significant measure of competition advocacy in 2019. Among other positive aspects, GCR considered relevant the issuance of administrative rule concerning access to documents part of administrative proceedings for imposing penalties for economic crimes.

Besides receiving four stars, CADE is competing on the “GCR Awards 2020” for the award of “Government agency of the year.” The nomination is a recognition of an effective, strategic and innovative performance of the agency as to improving practices developed in the competition defence field. The award result will be released on October.

Review and ranking 

The GCR is the most prestigious international journal on the antitrust field and monitors the work of antitrust agencies worldwide.

The ranking elaborated by GCR considers the performance of antitrust authorities in the year prior to the year of disclosure of review results. The rating employs a system of one to five stars, and takes into account the general performance of competition agencies in the task of protecting the economy from anticompetitive practices.

In this edition, the 35 main antitrust authorities, from various jurisdictions, were reviewed as from qualitative and quantitative criteria.  In addition to hearing the opinion of lawyers and other experts in the field, GCR applies a questionnaire to antitrust agencies to get important data for the review.

The information requested concerns, for instance, the number of merger and acquisitions reported and how such transactions have been reviewed, including the timeframe for a final decision, details about ongoing investigations and investigations that have already been concluded, amongst other information regarding the agency’s performance throughout the year.