On October 18, 2022, the General Superintendence (GS) of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) published Ordinance no. 21. According to the Ordinance, in cases where the GS/CADE recommends the conviction of players for taking part in cartels, the respective Technical Notes that grounded the recommendation should be forwarded to the competent Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Particularly in Leniency Agreements or even cartel investigations for which an specific Public Prosecutor has been already assigned, , the Technical Notes will be sent directly to this officer. In parallel, the representative of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office at CADE will be communicated when the Technical Note with recommendation of conviction is shared.
According to the Ordinance, the public versions of the Technical Notes shall be shared, in accordance with the rules provided for in Resolution no. 21/2018. This Resolution determines, in its 1st article, that the documents and information contained in administrative procedures are public and their disclosure should occur at the appropriate procedural stage, in accordance with articles 8th, 9th and 10th of this same act.
Such Resolution also determines that, during the instruction phase, the GS/CADE will make public versions of the Technical Note opening the administrative procedure available, as well as the GS/CADE’s final Technical Note. These public versions must contain: (i) the indication of the defendant and, where applicable, the plaintiff; (ii) statement on the unlawful conduct attributed to the defendant; (iii) the summary of the facts to be investigated; and (iv) the indication of the legal rule related to the alleged infringement (article 10, § 1st, Resolution CADE no. 21/2018).
The confidential versions of those documents can only be made available after the final decision of CADE’s Tribunal.
