The need for notification of export cartels as a way of granting antitrust exemption

• Grant number: 14/11878-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2014
• End date: July 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Public Law
• Principal Investigator: Juliana Oliveira Domingues
• Grantee: Ludmilla Martins da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Direito de Ribeirão Preto (FDRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The lack of international uniform treatment of export cartels, concerted with the lack of data regarding the use of these structures by players culminates in the absence of knowledge about their effects on the domestic and international markets. However, the need for notification, as a condition to granting antitrust exemption to export cartels, brings transparency to the competitive policy allowing controlling of export cartels. A study by LEVENSTEIN and SUSLOW made in 2004, whose purpose was to identify the different treatments of those structures given by different countries, concludes that in a universe of fifty-seven countries surveyed , only six countries require notification as a condition to grating antitrust exemption to export cartels, among these United States, Australia and New Zealand. Through a comparative study of North American, Australian and New Zealander laws relating to the control of such structures, the general aim of this paper is to identify the effects of this model of exemption by notification to the national and international Antitrust policy, which will allow the identification of tools and mechanisms that can help Brazil in its Antitrust policy. The goal of this paper is justifiable owing to the absence of an express treatment in the New Brazilian Antitrust Law, in terms of bar or permit export cartels, which allows us to infer that Brazil adopts an implicit exemption to such structures, making it difficult to monitor its effects on the domestic and international markets.