A presente dissertação objetiva verificar a possibilidade de utilização dos cartéis de exportação tendo em vista o ordenamento jurídico brasileiro. Para tanto, um importante corte metodológico foi realizado: somente questões relativas ao direito constitucional e ao direito concorrencial foram analisadas, deixando-se de lado aquelas que nos são trazidas pelo direito internacional e pela ciência econômica. O trabalho pode ser dividido em três grandes partes. A primeira cuida de justificar a escolha do tema cartéis de exportação. Para tanto, nos valemos da idéia de que as exportações são importante instrumento do qual se valem os Estados para equilibrar a sua atividade econômica e fomentar/financiar o seu desenvolvimento. A segunda parte cuida dos acordos entre concorrentes. Nesse passo, realizamos um pequeno estudo sobre as principais Escolas ideológicas que pretendem interpretar o direito antitruste e apontar a forma correta para a sua aplicação. Em seguida, cuidamos dos cartéis clássicos (os hard core cartels) e tratamos de diferenciá-los dos demais acordos entre concorrentes. É hora então de cuidarmos especificamente dos cartéis de exportação. Traremos as suas principais características, classificações e os benefícios e malefícios que são apontados pela doutrina. Bem definidos esses instrumentos, adentramos em um terreno bastante inóspito, que é o da forma pela qual os cartéis de exportação são encarados pelos Estados e pelas associações internacionais. Observaremos que, a despeito de serem utilizados por países como os Estados Unidos, existe uma tendência de que sejam tratados como condutas anticompetitivas, a semelhança dos cartéis clássicos. Uma das possíveis justificativas para isso seria a adoção generalizada dos conceitos da Escola de Chicago e das teorias econômicas neoclássicas. A principal crítica realizada por esses doutrinadores é a de que os cartéis de exportação são formas indevidas de atuação do Estado na economia que alteram as condições naturais de concorrência no mercado internacional. A última parte dessa dissertação está voltada para a inserção de toda a discussão promovida na moldura que nos é trazida pela Constituição Federal de 1988 e pela lei Antitruste brasileira (Lei 8884/1994). Para o texto constitucional, nosso enfoque será principalmente o dos artigos 3° (objetivos fundamentais da República Federativa do Brasil) e 170 (princípios gerais da atividade econômica). Com relação à lei antitruste, a discussão será voltada para a forma pela qual os cartéis de exportação são disciplinados por nossa lei. / The present essay aims to verify the possibility of using export cartels, considering the Brazilian Law system. For that, an important methodological cut has been done: only matters regarding constitutional law and anti-trust law have been analyzed, leaving apart those matters that are brought to us by the international law and economical science. It can be divided in three big parts. The first one handles the justification for the choice of the subject export cartels. For that, we make use of the idea that the exportations are an important instrument for the Countries to balance their economical activity and stimulate/finance their development. The second part deals with the agreements between competitors. At this pace, we made a small study about the main ideological stream, that intend to understand the antitrust law and identify the correct form for its application. Following that, we mention the classical cartels (the hard core cartels) and differentiate them from the other agreements between competitors. It is time then to handle the export cartels. We mention their main traits, classification, benefits and losses that are pointed by the doctrine. Being those instruments well defined, we enter and uninviting terrain, that is the way that the countries and International Associations face the export cartels. We observe that, despite being used by countries like United States, there is a tendency to treat it like uncompetitive behavior, resembling the classical cartels. One of the possible explanations for that would be the general adoption of the concepts brought by the Chicago stream and the neoclassical economical theories. The authors main critic is that the export cartels are inappropriate methods of Government intervention in the Economy that alters the natural conditions of the competition in the international market. The last part of such essay is dedicated to the insertion of all the discussion promoted in the patters that are brought to us by the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the Anti-trust Brazilian Law (Law 8884/1994). Regarding the constitutional text, our focus in mainly on the 3rd article (fundamental goals of the Brazilian Federal Republic), and the article 170 (general principles of the economical activity). Regarding the Anti-trust law, the discussion is facing the way that the export cartels are ruled by such area of our legal system.

The thesis provides for a comprehensive legal overview of bid rigging and its manifestation in public procurement. Bid rigging is defined as coordination of competitors in tenders which is not necessary and which is executed when these competitors submit bids according to the conditions agreed among them. The thesis briefly sums up available information on occurrence of bid rigging with emphasis on the only two cases of bid rigging that have been identified, proved and sanctioned in the Czech Republic. This information suggests that despite the fact that the risk of bid rigging is higher at certain markets, notably markets with limited number of competitors present thereon, it may take place in any market. Bid rigging is further analysed as a prohibited agreement distorting competition which always distorts or prevents competitions and as such is considered one of the most serious anti- competitive practices capable of causing immense economic damage. A separate chapter tackles bid rigging in public procurement. This chapter analyses legal basis of prohibition of bid rigging in public procurement, its impact on principles of efficiency, effectiveness and expediency, and points out factors that may support occurrence of bid rigging. With regards to this analysis, the thesis formulates several...

The relationship between private and public enforcement of cartel law has been heavily discussed in the recent years, both in legal doctrine and political circles. The European Commission has come up with various initiatives in order to promote and support changes in the legal orders of the EU Member States, which would make the private enforcement of cartel law easier and more accessible, especially for consumers, but for other subjects impaired by the violation of competition rules as well. However, this effort needs to be balanced with the existing system of public enforcement, notably with the established and well-funcioning leniency programmes. A strenghtened "private pillar" must not cause any damage to the exisitng "public pillar". Can private enforcement be an efficient complement to the hitherto system (predominantly public), and if so, where are the limits of it? On one hand, the support of private enforcement could discourage cartelists to participate in the leniency programmes, because the possible economic benefits (exemption from fines) might not outweigh the losses (huge amounts paid on damages in connection with follow-on actions). On the other hand, it has been argued that private enforcement is deeply underdeveloped in the European Union and no ideas of the European Commission drawing...

In this thesis I am analyzing the causes of failure of the recovery program resulting from the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) the implementation of which the National Recovery Administration (NRA) ensured. I am searching for the act's ideological roots and directions of thought which had projected themselves into it, first. Further on, I deal with the content, process of drafting and approving of the codes of fair competition, as well as the facts which were determining them. In the next part I am scrutinizing the procedures of enforcing the codes and code compliance, including the twists in development of these. For the understanding of these procedures is what I regard as necessary for grasping the increasing hostility towards the NRA of part of business. In the last two chapters I deal with the NRA's failure's causes proper. I divide these causes into, first, which I think do not result from the NIRA conception and which could have revealed themselves during any other program's implementation. And, second, which result from the legislation's real essence directly. These I am dividing, further on, into causes (defects) emanating from the NIRA just as a result of concrete historical circumstances of time and place and causes emanating from the act's conception necessarily, disregard of circumstances. My central idea, to the advantage of which I am setting forth the arguments in this thesis, is that the NIRA must have ended up unsuccessful, exactly because of the inherent problems it contained, even if there was no Supreme Court's Schechter decision. In accordance with Mises's idea of any interventionist model's necessary instability I utter the hypothesis that the NIRA had but two ways ahead of it. One led to the state before the act's passage, the other one led in the direction of central planning, in any form, which only could have, although for a short time, deal with the problems resulting from the missing inter-industrial coordination in the state of the fragmented order of market.

O Direito Antitruste experimenta hoje uma verdadeira era dourada na qual a cooperação internacional entre os órgãos de defesa da concorrência e a aplicação de suas leis alcançaram níveis jamais vistos. Como efeito colateral do fenômeno globalização, o qual marcou as últimas décadas pela expansão da economia de mercado, veio a internacionalização dos acordos entre concorrentes com vistas a limitar a concorrência. Os chamados cartéis, antes nacionais, passam a ter a dimensão dessa nova dinâmica da economia, a mundial. E os danos ao mercado, antes limitados a um território, passam a poder atingir dezenas de jurisdições. A partir desse introito, o objetivo dessa dissertação é oferecer ao leitor um quadro compreensivo da evolução da atuação das autoridades antitruste brasileiras na cooperação internacional de combate aos cartéis transnacionais, em termos normativos e na utilização na prática, considerando, sobretudo, o contexto do recente recrudescimento do instrumental persecutório das autoridades brasileiras de defesa da concorrência no combate às práticas anticompetitivas. Por meio de uma análise comparativa entre os acordos internacionais de cooperação mais sofisticados e os instrumentos cooperacionais existentes no Brasil à luz da sua florescente experiência, a dissertação procura identificar os elementos necessários para o aprofundamento da técnica cooperativa brasileira de combate aos cartéis transnacionais. Ou seja, intenta trazer elementos para a reflexão dos mecanismos cooperativos brasileiros para um combate mais efetivo à mais danosa infração à livre concorrência. Para tal análise comparativa, o centenário direito antitruste estadunidense é paradigma de direito estrangeiro, em especial porque alia a longa experiência jurídica nessa matéria a mecanismos bastante inovadores em relação ao sistema jurídico nacional. O presente trabalho tem também por escopo tratar dos principais temas que permeiam a discussão da cooperação internacional entre as agências de defesa da concorrência, passando pelo estudo dos conceitos de cooperação jurídica internacional; princípios do direito internacional público que regem a competência internacional dos Estados, incluindo a delimitação do escopo da cooperação em sede da aplicação extraterritorial do direito antitruste, noções de direito concorrencial, os instrumentos e mecanismos de cooperação internacional existentes, as melhores práticas, entre outros. Os desdobramentos das questões analisadas nesta reflexão se expressam em problemas jurídicos tanto de caráter geral quanto de ordem específica. De forma geral, impõe-se uma avaliação recapitulativa e analítica da natureza jurídica dos acordos de cooperação assinados pelo Brasil, de suas características e de sua utilização. Também se pretende avaliar o tratamento normativo dado aos cartéis e à questão da incidência extraterritorial da legislação antitruste brasileira e da legislação comparada, bem como do entendimento da jurisprudência (especialmente do CADE) sobre os principais temas que permeiam a pesquisa. No âmbito dos objetivos específicos, é necessário responder às seguintes perguntas: como a cooperação entre as agências de defesa da concorrência pode efetivamente auxiliar na aplicação de suas leis?; quais os limites e obstáculos dessa cooperação?; quais os tipos de cooperação disponíveis e quais deles fariam sentido para o Brasil na persecução de cartéis internacionais?; como o Brasil pode aperfeiçoar seu modelo jurídico-institucional de cooperação? / The Antitrust Law faces today a true golden age in which international cooperation among antitrust authorities and its enforcement have reached levels never seen before. As a side effect of the \"globalization\", the phenomenon that marked the past few decades by the world expansion of the economy, it came along the internationalization of agreements among competitors to restrain competition. Prior to that, the so-called cartels had then a national dimension, but along with the globalization, they now operate at a worldwide scale in this new dynamic of the world economy. And, the damages to the market, which was before limited to a single territory, now, reach dozens of jurisdictions. With that preamble into consideration, the goal of the present dissertation is offering the reader a comprehensive picture of the evolution of the Brazilian antitrust authorities on international cooperation in the fight of transnational cartels, both, in normative terms and in practice. That picture is especially important in light of the context of the recently enhanced Brazilian authorities instrumental competition in combating anti-competitive practices. Through a comparative assessment between the more sophisticated cooperation international agreements and the Brazilian cooperational instruments, the dissertation attempts to identify the essentials for the improvement of the Brazilian cooperative techniques in combating transnational cartels. That is, it brings elements to the reflection of the Brazilian cooperative mechanisms for a more effective combat of such damaging infringement to free competition. For the elaboration of said comparative assessment, the centennial USA antitrust law is the foreign law paradigm chosen, in particular because it combines the long legal experience in the matter and fairly innovative mechanisms in relation to the Brazilian legal system. The present work also deals with the most relevant themes that permeate the discussion of international cooperation among antitrust agencies, such as, the study of concepts of international legal cooperation; the public international law principles which govern the international jurisdiction of the States, including the extraterritorial application of antitrust law, relevant notions of competition law, international instruments and existing mechanisms for cooperation, best practices, among others. The unfolding of these relevant matters which are examined in the herewith reflection are expressed in legal problems of both general and specific orders. Generally, the work presents a summary and an analytical assessment of the legal nature of the cooperation agreements signed by Brazil, its characteristics, and its use. The work also aims at evaluating the regulatory treatment given to cartels and at addressing the question of the extraterritorial application of the Brazilian antitrust legislation and of comparative law, as well as at understanding the national case law (especially of CADE) on the main matters. With the specific objectives in mind, the present work deems necessary to respond to the following questions: How cooperation among the antitrust agencies can effectively enforce competition laws? What are the limits and obstacles of this cooperation? What types of cooperation are available and which ones make sense for Brazil in the prosecution of international cartels? How can Brazil enhance its legal and institutional model of cooperation?

A firm’s participation in cartel depends upon the potential problems that may arise due to price fixing and the incentives provided to the management. The top levels of management such as the board of directors and the CEO are responsible for deciding if the firm will participate in the cartel and manage the corporate governance activities of collusive price fixing agreements. This study aims to identify which characteristics of the participating firms’ boards of directors and CEOs are associated with cartel formation. It analyses the empirical investigation of cartel participation of firms, taking into account corporate governance characteristics as such as board of directors’ characteristics, ownership structure, CEO characteristics, and CEO compensation scheme. The study is focused on UK cartel firms which has the highest representation in the sample. A total number of 150 cartel firms in 52 cases from all around the world between the years 1990 to 2008 are involved in this study, of which 114 are UK firms. Therefore, this study is dominated by UK firms. The challenge of this study is that the personal attributes of CEOs and boards can make a significant contribution to the risk profile of a cartel being formed. This indeed would be to ‘diagnose’ organisational culture in a quite radical direction. The study suggests and finds that some corporate governance attributes are associated with cartel formation. The results reveal consistency with prior researches, that cartel firms have different corporate governance relative to a control sample in the three years prior to cartel formation. Specifically, the study concludes that UK-based cartel firms characterised by having larger board size compared to non-cartel firms; lower percentage of independent directors (non-executive); higher average of board remuneration; less likely that cartel is formed by family-owned and controlled firm (large shareholders); having older CEOs represented on the board; having CEO who served a less number of years as a director; less likely to have a female CEO represented; more likely to have CEOs who’s combined CEO-chairman position; and a higher average of CEOs bonuses and compensation packages.

A presente dissertação abarcará cinco temas bastante específicos: a defesa da concorrência, a defesa do consumidor, a prática do cartel, as formas consensuais de seu combate e investigação e o bem-estar do consumidor. No Brasil, verifica-se que, tanto a defesa da concorrência como a do consumidor se unem por um objetivo comum: o bem-estar do consumidor. Por isso, práticas tidas como ofensivas à ordem econômica podem desencadear danos graves aos consumidores, sendo um relevante exemplo disto a formação de cartéis, especialmente os relacionados à alteração artificial de preços. Dentre as práticas abusivas previstas no CDC, foi lançada elevação de preços sem justa causa, o que torna possível que a prática do cartel ou, ao menos, os seus efeitos sobre o preço, possam vir a ser reprimidos por ambas as esferas. Nesse sentido, buscou-se analisar os institutos consensuais de combate aos cartéis previstos na lei de concorrência: o “compromisso de cessação de conduta” e o “programa de leniência”, assim como seus possíveis efeitos benéficos sobre os consumidores. Desta feita, a presente dissertação visou a responder aos seguintes problemas de pesquisa: (i) qual o arcabouço jurídico-institucional à disposição da defesa do consumidor e da concorrência? (ii) qual o liame entre estas duas esferas? (iii) o que é “cartel” e de que forma ele atinge os consumidores (iv) o que são o “compromisso de cessação de conduta” e o “programa de leniência” e qual a sua utilidade ao combate dos cartéis? A conclusão obtida é que a defesa da concorrência e a do consumidor possuem um objetivo comum, o bem-estar do consumidor, a primeira de forma mediata e a segunda, imediata. Ademais, verificou-se o “cartel” como uma conduta altamente agressiva à livre concorrência e aos interesses dos consumidores, sendo possível que seus efeitos, de forma indireta, sejam penalizados pelo CDC. Finalmente, verificou-se a grande utilidade das formas consensuais – “compromisso de cessação de conduta” e “programa de leniência” – não apenas ao combate aos cartéis quanto à imediata cessação de seus efeitos, mas também como grande ferramenta de prova de sua ocorrência e garantia do bem-estar dos consumidores. / The presente dissetation involves five very specific issues: antitrust, consumer protection, cartels, consensual forms of its combat and investigation and consumer welfare. In Brazil, it is found that both the defense of competition as the consumer defense are united by a common goal: consumer welfare. Therefore, practices seen as offensive to the economic order can trigger serious harm to consumers, being a relevant example the cartel formation, especially those related to artificial price change. Among the abusive practices set out in Brazilian Consumer Defese Code (CDC), it was registered the prices raise without just cause, which makes it possible that the cartel, or at least its effects on the price, may be suppressed by both spheres. Therefore, it sought to analyze the consensual institutes of cartel’s combat and investigation under competition law: the "Conduct Consent Decree" and "Leniency Program", as well as their possible beneficial effects on consumers. Thereby, this dissertation aimed to answer the following research problems: (i) what is the legal and institutional framework available to the consumer’s and competition’s protection? (ii) what is the link between these two spheres? (iii) what is "cartel" and how it affects consumers? (iv) what are the "Conduct Consent Decree" and "Leniency Program" and what is its usefulness to cartel’s combat? The reached conclusion is that the defense of competition and the defense of consumer have a common purpose, consumer welfare, the first in a mediate way and the second immediately. In addition, the "cartel" was established as a highly aggressive approach to free competition and to the interests of consumers, being possible that their effects, indirectly, be penalized by the CDC. - "Conduct Consent Decree" and "Leniency Program" - not only to fight against cartels to the immediate cessation of its effects, but also as a great proof tool of its occurrence and assurance of the well-being of consumers.

This diploma thesis deals with the sustainability and stability of anarchy in the long run. Theories of Robert Nozick, Tyler Cowen and Randall G. Holcombe, which point to inevitable emergence of the state from the state of nature, are evaluated and compared with empirical observations of stateless societies. Proposals for the potential avoidance of state emergence despite the possible tendency of anarchy toward monopolization in the form of vertically integrated proprietary communities, remedial state and ideology are also introduced and analyzed. As result, the diploma thesis challenges the theories describing the inevitable emergence of the state and the first two proposals, which were designed to solve this problem. The role of ideology is highlighted in the conclusion as a crucial factor in achieving and maintaining anarchy in the long run.

I examine the relationship between the electoral security of congressmen, measured as vote margins in the previous election, and the support Members of Congress offer to their party. I develop a theory that predicts safe members will be more willing to support than vulnerable members and leaders demand more loyalty from safe members than vulnerable. This arrangement is rational and beneficial for leaders and both types of members. Using an OLS regression, I find basic support for my theory.

I examine the relationship between the electoral security of congressmen, measured as vote margins in the previous election, and the support Members of Congress offer to their party. I develop a theory that predicts safe members will be more willing to support than vulnerable members and leaders demand more loyalty from safe members than vulnerable. This arrangement is rational and beneficial for leaders and both types of members. Using an OLS regression, I find basic support for my theory.