The Brazilian Antitrust Authority (CADE) entered into six agreements (Settlement Agreements) in investigations into the exchange of competitively sensitive information between Human Resources departments, bringing in proceeds of R$115 million (approx. US$20 million). The companies investigated are multinationals from different markets, including companies from the consumer and healthcare sectors.
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Five of these agreements were executed in the context of two investigations launched in 2024: (i) the purpose of the first one is to look into the participation of consumer sector companies in the Consumer Companies Group (GECON in Portuguese), and (ii) the second one investigates the participation of multinationals in the Executive Groups of Salaries (GES in Portuguese) and Benefits Administrators (GEAB in Portuguese)
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One of the agreements refers to the investigation launched in 2021, CADE's first HR investigation into the participation of healthcare companies in the information exchange group called MedTech.
In 2022, CADE had already entered into six settlement agreements in the context of MedTech's investigation. In 2024, CADE refused the approval of a seventh agreement in this same case due to insufficient collaboration with the investigation.
The HR settlement agreements approved by CADE's Tribunal total R$150 million (approx. US$27 million) up to the moment. This reinforces the Brazilian authority’s tendency of rigorously and cautiously examining practices involving the labor market, in line with concerns of foreign authorities.
TozziniFreire's Competition Team is closely following the development of the topic with CADE and is available to answer any questions.
