CADE wins an international award for its Guide for Fighting Cartels in Procurements

The Guide for Fighting Cartels in Procurements, issued by the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), was awarded first place in the category “Best Soft Law – Concerted Practices” on the Antitrust Writing Awards that happened today (5 October). The Guide also won an award in the category “Soft Law – Readers’ Choice”. The traditional award are presented at annual events by Concurrences, the independent legal publisher dedicated to antitrust law and competition economics.

The category “Best Soft Law” presents a selection of the most interesting enforcement practices issued by competition agencies around the world, such as guidelines and market studies. In this year’s edition, alongside CADE’s guide, works elaborated by the antitrust authorities from Hong Kong, Peru and Lithuania competed for the award in the subcategory “Concerted Practices”.

According to the president of CADE, Alexandre Barreto, fighting cartels is a priority on the elaboration of public policies related to the defence of competition in Brazil. “The Guide for Fighting Cartels in Procurements is aimed at assembling the experience gained by CADE during the more than twenty years it has been fighting cartels, especially the experience related to collusion in government procurement processes.”

CADE has already won in the same category twice in 2017 and 2018 with its Guideline for Cease and Desist Agreements (TCC) and its Search and Seizure Guide. In addition, CADE has been a finalist in the 2016, 2017 and 2019 editions with the Guidelines for Competition Compliance Programs, Guidelines for the Analysis of Previous Consummation of Merger Transactions and the Guidelines for Antitrust Remedies, respectively.

The winning publication

Released in December 2019, the Guide for Fighting Cartels in Procurements is aimed at assembling the agency’s experience on fighting cartels in government procurement processes.

The Guide’s main goal is to instruct and assist all parties involved in organizing and carrying out public and private procurement processes, such as auctioneers and members of procurement committees, other authorities responsible for investigating and penalizing the illegal conduct, and to society at large, regarding how to recognize the main signs of collusive behavior in procurements, with the intent of improving the chances of cartels being detected, prevented and penalized.    

“The Guide is a result of a collaborative effort that took us almost a year. We prepared a more practical and visual document, with illustrations and real cases, to show people that cartels are not an abstract idea distant from our day-to-day reality. Cartels in procurements are very concrete and can cause higher prices for essential goods and services, and waste resources that could be used for different government policies”, states Fernanda Machado, coordinator of the unit responsible for investigating cartel cases in government procurements of the General Superintendence of CADE.

This Monday (5 October), CADE also released the English version of the Guide for Fighting Cartels in Procurements.

Access the Guide for Fighting Cartels in Portuguese and in English.