Juliana Domingues
Alexandre Barreto
Gustavo Lima
Victor Oliveira Fernandes
Comment
On 6 and 7 April 2022, the plenary of the Federal Senate approved the nomination of four new members for the Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE). They are:
- Juliana Oliveira Domingues – attorney general;
- Alexandre Barreto de Souza – general superintendent; and
- Gustavo Augusto Freitas de Lima and Victor Oliveira Fernandes – new members of the administrative tribunal.
Juliana Domingues was the national secretary for consumer protection at the Ministry of Justice and is a professor of economic law and antitrust at the University of São Paulo. She practiced in this area as an attorney at LO Baptista Advogados until 2012.
Alexandre Barreto was the president of the CADE from June 2017 to June 2021. He is a federal auditor of external control of the Federal Court of Accounts and has worked as a civil servant since 1993, carrying out activities in different bodies of the federal government, such as the National Treasury, the Department of Inland Revenue and the Senate.
Gustavo Lima has been a member at the Attorney General's Office since 2006. He holds a bachelor's degree in law and a lato sensu postgraduate diploma in public law from the Estácio de Sá University, as well as a master's degree in law from the University Centre of Brasília, which focused on regulatory agencies and potential judicial review.
Victor Oliveira Fernandes is currently the chief of staff for Justice Gilmar Mendes at the Supreme Court and a professor of economic and antitrust law at the Public Law Institute. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in law from the University of Brasilia and a PhD from the University of São Paulo focused on competition policy in digital markets. From 2017 to 2019, he was the chief of staff for the former CADE commissioner, Paulo Burnier da Silveira.
Fernandes is the only nominee that the Senate has approved who has yet to take office at the CADE. As for the terms assigned to each position, Lima and Fernandes will each serve a four-year term, while Domingues and Barreto will each serve two-year terms.
Following these four additions, the CADE is back to full capacity, with no open vacancies. Barreto's appointment signals a continuation of the entity's current policies, as he has simply swapped roles with now President Alexandre Cordeiro.
Fernandes and Lima, on the other hand, will play a decisive part in how the administrative tribunal will position itself in the coming years, as some current members have proposed changes to established caselaw in relevant topics, such as the possibility of punishing non-manager individuals for anticompetitive violations and the method of calculation of fines in cartel cases.
The next update to the CADE's seniority should take place in October and November 2023, when the term of these four commissioners will come to an end:
- Sérgio Costa Ravagnani;
- Luiz Hoffmann;
- Luis Braido; and
- Lenisa Prado.
For further information on this topic please contact Marcela Mattiuzzo or Julia Braga at VMCA by telephone (+55 11 3939 0708) or email ([email protected] or [email protected]). The VMCA website can be accessed at www.vmca.adv.br.