Case rapporteur says the pact can be replaced by mechanisms that do not configure cartel formation
The (Administrative Council for Economic Defense) decided, this Thursday (30.SET.2025), for maintaining the suspension of Rural Producers from the Amazon Region until December 2025.
The rapporteur of the process, counselor, voted to maintain the preventive measure against the moratorium and stated that there are other ways to ensure that companies buy soy from producers who respect the environmental code of Brazil without sharing sensitive information among other members of the market – which configures cartel formation.
“It could be a trade to establish by its internal policy that would only acquire soy from zero deforestation places. No need to dialogue with the other competitors for that […] The objective of monitoring affected areas zero deforestation could be achieved by less indicative methods of damage to the competition, such as the CA (Rural Environmental Registry), which validates the property ”declared the rapporteur.
For the (Mato Grosso State soybean and corn producers association), the rapporteur’s votes on the pre-trial measures of the general superintendency reinforce the signs of cartel and highlight the distortions generated by this mechanism, as well as their anti-confidential practices that impair the fair and competitive market environment.
“The manifestations of the Cade General Superintendence, the Rapporteur and the President show that the end of the moratorium is an essential step for Brazil to reaffirm that sustainability and legality do not oppose, after all, environmental policies cannot be simulated as an pretext for economic exclusion.”he said in a statement.
Understand
Created in 2006, the soy moratorium is a pact between tradingsexporters, industries, environmental organizations and the government to prevent the purchase of grains produced in deforested areas of the Amazon after 2008.
Although it has no force of law, it became a reference of environmental self -regulation and became a criterion for access to the international market, mainly European, which requires guarantees against new deforestation.
In August, Cade’s general superintendence suspended the effects of the moratorium and opened administrative proceedings against companies and signatory associations.
According to the agency, the agreement is anticompetitive, as competitors would have created the soybean working group to monitor the market and impose purchase conditions. The measure, valid throughout the country, affects producers in the Amazon region above all.
Cade determined that the group refrained from collecting, sharing or auditing commercial information linked to the production and sale of the grain. The decision was made after representation of the Agriculture Commission of the House of Representatives.
