CADE remains as one of the eight best antitrust agencies in the world

The Administrative Council for Economic Defense – CADE stands among the eight best antitrust agencies in the world according to the Rating Enforcement 2014: the 14th annual ranking of competition authorities, published on 3 May by the Global Competition Review magazine. The achievement was first earned in 2013, when the Brazilian autarchy received, for the first time, four of five stars and only stood behind the agencies from the European Union, France, Germany, United States (DoJ and FTC), United Kingdom and Japan.

The ranking is developed annually by GCR, a specialized magazine in competition policies and regulation. In the Rating Enforcement 2014 edition, agencies from various jurisdictions were evaluated from qualitative and quantitative criteria. The evaluation regards the antitrust authorities’ performance in 2013 in their role in protecting economies from anticompetitive practices.

According to the publication, CADE maintained its rate by analyzing the majority of its merger cases in a rapid and efficient way, and by improving transparency in its proceedings.

Another good year in the merger control performance, pointed by the GCR report, means the Brazilian authority “officially passed the test” regarding the change to the previous merger review system brought by Law 12.529/2011, which came into force two years ago.

To the President of CADE, Vinicius Marques de Carvalho, the four stars rate by the second consecutive year means “the advances brought by the new law and by the CADE’s internal reorganization are here to stay”.

According to GCR’s diagnosis, it was not only the period of analysis of a merger that improved, but also the clarity about which information must be presented to the authority. “It is clear how parties must proceed and exactly which information need to be submitted”.

The GCR mentions yet the effort of the antitrust agency in reducing the backlog of anticompetitive conducts cases, highlighting the condemnation of ten cartel cases in the fuel market and the air cargo cartel, in 2013.