Brazil: CADE launches probe on postal service

Brazilian competition authority CADE has issued a Decision on their Official Gazette, announcing the start of proceedings to investigate anticompetitive conducts engaged in by Brazil’s postal service, the Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos (ECT).

The probe comes as a result of complaints presented by the Association of Cargo Transportation Companies of São Paulo and Region – SETCESP, alleging that ECT would have been practicing two anticompetitive conducts and trying to expand their legal monopoly on mail and parcel delivery. The ECT is accused of limiting the arrival of competitors through the use of ‘sham litigation’.

Another irregularity, according to SETCESP, would have been the practice of higher prices by ECT to attend competitor as clients, when compared to the lower prices charged from non-competitors for the same products. While the CADE does not question the ECT’s legal monopoly, the organism has considered some specific behaviors to be arguably anticompetitive.

Full content: CADE > http://www.cade.gov.br/Default.aspx?a39667b242d72cf7024fe07ed778

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