The General Superintendence of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (SG/CADE) published, in the first half of September, Cade Ordinance n. 416, which regulates the receipt and processing of password requests (marker requests) for the negotiation of leniency agreements by electronic means.
The marker request is the act through which the proponent of the leniency agreement contacts the SG/CADE to formalize their interest and plead a declaration that preliminarily qualifies them to negotiate the benefits of the leniency agreement in exchange for identifying the others involved in the infringement and for providing the information and documents that prove the anti-competitive conduct.
CADE Ordinance no. 416 establishes the general rules for Clique Leniência, an electronic system developed to process electronic marker requests. It will operate continuously, issuing electronic receipts with a record of the exact moment of the request.
This automation of registry is extremely important given that leniency agreements can only be negotiated and entered into with the first company to qualify for an agreement concerning an infringement that has been reported or that is under investigation.
Therefore, the SG/CADE may make an electronic file available, in response to the marker requests presented through the system, containing: (i) the term marker, if the interested party was the first to propose a leniency agreement regarding that infraction, (ii) the term marker unavailability, when the violation is already being investigated in another administrative proceeding, or (iii) waiting list certificate, when a violation has already been reported by a third party with whom the SG/CADE negotiates a leniency agreement. In this case, the proponent may continue on the waiting list, so that a negotiation be conducted, if the negotiations with the other proponents do not work out.
The Ordinance came into force on September 15, 2021, and it will take effect as of October 1, 2021.
