Partner Marcela Mattiuzzo talked to Global Data Review (GDR) about the discussion, which is taking place in the country’s Supreme Court, whether using evidence obtained from WhatsApp messages without user permission would violate the constitutional right to confidentiality of communications.
Full article available here.
Partner Eduardo Frade talked with GCR about the agreement signed by Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline at Cade in order to eliminate any horizontal overlap in the market for antacids.
Eduardo Frade said that the proposed divestiture appears to effectively end any antitrust-related concerns.
Full article available here.
Partner Eduardo Frade talked with Global Competition Review (GCR) about the agreement signed by Petrobras at Cade to sell eight oil refineries.
Frade said the settlement ends a long-lasting monopoly of a company that is considered a Brazilian institution. “This will still be an industry subject to antitrust concerns, as others, but this change evidently gives room to more competition.”
Full article available here.
Partners Vinicius Marques de Carvalho and Marcela Mattiuzzo will participate this week in the RightsCon, the world’s biggest event about human rights in the digital era, to be held from June 11 to 14 in Tunis, Tunisia.
Originally called the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, RightsCon is an annual event that rotates its location each year to new host cities around the world that are power centers for technology and human rights. In 2019, RightsCon will be hosted in Tunis, Tunisia.
VMCA partners will speak at the panel “Antitrust, consumer protection, and the digital economy”, at 12 pm on the 13th.
The event will receive more than 2,500 participants, from 130 countries, representing 700 companies, governments, and organizations.
More information is available here.
VMCA founding partner Vinicius Marques de Carvalho spoke last month at the 2019 International Competition Network (ICN) Annual Conference, hosted by the Colombian Superintendence of Industry and Commerce between May 15th and 17th in Cartagena.
Vinicius was one of the panelist at the breakout session (BOS) “Organizational design – Getting in shape for the digital economy”, which discussed how Competition authorities around the world are taking different approaches to their staffing and structure to ensure that they are well placed to face the competition challenges posed on digital markets – for example, some competition authorities have implemented horizontal working groups for digital issues, while others have created specialised digital units or recruited digital or forensic IT staff within existing structures. The BOS explored different options adopted by Competition authorities, to gauge successes and challenges.
More information about the conference is available here.
VMCA associate Anna Binotto talked to PaRR about a Itaú/Ticket deal currently under Cade’s analysis.
“The third party seems to be suggesting that, since the banking market is very concentrated and there are many vertically integrated players in the financial sector, the mere increase in Itaú’s economic power or its expansion into a related market should prompt CADE’s intervention, even though there is no causal link between the transaction and a significant market share increase, Binotto said. “CADE has never bought into such a thesis,” she said, adding that the leveraging theory of harm is usually viewed with caution by most CADE commissioners.”
Full article is available at https://lnkd.in/dzjieah (subscription required)
A Brazilian public prosecutor has asked telecoms company Vivo to clarify data protection practices used in its targeted advertising services ahead of national data protection legislation (LGPD) entering into force next year, Global Data Review (GDR) reports.
According to partner Marcela Mattiuzzo, the request’s lack of any reference to legislation is interesting. “The DPIA requirements are very much based on the GDPR, because even though we have a Brazilian version in the LGPD, that it’s not yet enforced – all we currently have is a very broad article [in the LGPD] that just allows the authority to require such reports without going into detail of what the report will consist of”, Marcela told GDR.
VMCA partner also said that this approach was “odd,” particularly given that Brazil’s Congress is currently discussing how former president Michael Temer’s December executive order, which created a specialised data protection authority in a last-minute pivot on policy, will operate in practice.
VMCA partners Eduardo Frade and Marcela Mattiuzzo and senior associate Diogo Sant’Ana are going to participate this week in the 3rd National Forum on Competition and Regulation (Fonacre, in the Portuguese acronym), which will take place from May 15 to 17 in Brasilia.
Marcela will be a speaker in the forum’s first panel, at 9am on the 16th, which will discuss “Leniency Agreements: judicial control and contemporary issues “. Partner Eduardo Frade will be in the next panel, discussing “Compliance and the Brazilian anti-corruption law” at 10.50am. Finally, senior associate Diogo Sant’Ana will be a panelist at the third panel of the day, entitled “Frequent debtors: interactions between taxation and competition” at 2 pm on the same day. In addition to private sector experts, all panels will feature academics and members from various spheres of the government, including regulatory agencies.
Fonacre, organized by the Association of Federal Judges of Brazil (Ajufe), aims to promote the debate among federal judges, lawyers, members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and other legal operators in order to improve discussions on issues related to competition and regulation.
More information is available here.
On May 14th, VMCA’s partner Vinicius Marques de Carvalho will speak on the panel “We know ‘consumer harm’ when we see it – or don’t we? Substantive assessment by High Tech and National Champions“, during the the Pre-International Competition Network (Pre-ICN) Forum, co-organised by ICC and the IBA, which is an annual high-level forum where attendees can take part in an interactive discussion on competition law enforcement and policy and get insights directly from regulators and business experts.
Entitled “Emerging Trends in Antitrust Policy and Enforcement: Colombia, Latin America, and Beyond”, the Pre-ICN will take place in Cartagena (Colombia) and is focused on is for business executives, private practitioners, competition agencies, academics, ICN delegates, and NGAs.
More information is available on the event’s webpage: https://bit.ly/2DSvPFY
VMCA partner Eduardo Frade will be a panelist on the topic “Bid Rigging: Anticorruption Mets Competition Enforcement” on May 10, 2019, at the American Bar Association (ABA)’s 5th biennial Antitrust in the Americas conference. The conference will be held in in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 9-10, and will gather government enforcers, corporate counsel and leading antitrust practitioners from throughout the Americas.
Eduardo’s panel will discuss lessons learned from recent high-profile cases in Brazil, Argentina and elsewhere related to bid rigging cases involving the intersection of fraud, anti-corruption and competition law enforcement, which have become the “new normal,” creating unique challenges involving overlapping enforcement mandates, issues of leniency and cooperation, and assessment of penalties. Alongside VMCA’s partner, will be discussing the topic John Pecman (Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Canada), Laura Alonso (Secretariat of Public Ethics, Transparency and the Fight against Corruption, Anticorruption Office, Ministry of Justice & Human Rights of Argentina), Fernando Carreño Nuñez (Von Wobeser y Sierra, Mexico) and Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo (General Superintendent, CADE, Brazil).
Full programme available at https://bit.ly/2WHkiQI