The Brazilian report describes the wide range of sanctions available to the Brazilian Competition Authority. It presents the public debate between two commissioners about the appropriate method of calculating fines proportionate to the wrongdoing. The authors suggest that Brazil can improve the level of effectiveness of the antitrust policy beyond raising fines. It would be important to incorporate in the antitrust law the specific sanction of a director disqualification order, to create double damages, establish the offense’s duration as a statutory basis for the fine calculation, and create exemptions for leniency beneficiaries to double damages. They also recommend establishing the economic group’s gross turnover as the statutory basis for the fine calculation (instead of the imprecise turnover in the relevant market). Finally, they advocate raising to four to eight years (currently two to five years) the criminal imprisonment penalty for collusion and conspiracy, and including in the criminal law the revocation of the corporate license for trade as an ancillary penalty to be applied by the criminal courts.

Chapter 8 analyses the food value chain in Brazil from the perspective of its antitrust authority (‘CADE’), with a specific focus on the decisions it has rendered. The research focuses on the Brazilian transgenic seed and meat production markets, which are distinguished from one another by the different degrees of technology employed in their production processes. In considering Brazil’s meat exports, this Chapter analyses international barriers for commodities commerce, such as subsidies adopted by developed countries and the United States’ Committee on Foreign Investment (‘CFIUS’).