HOTELS X ONLINE TRAVEL AGENCIES 499 III. ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL FOR ECONOMIC DEFENSE (CADE) The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE)4 is a government corporation, linked to the Ministry of Justice, whose mission is to promote, disseminate and ensure the culture of free competition, being responsible for investigating and ulteimately, deciding on competition matters. Alongside the Competition Advocacy Office of the Ministry of Economy5, it forms the Brazilian Competition Defense System and is composed by the Administrative Court of Economic Defense, the General Commissioner and the Department of Economic Studies. It verifies violations against the economic order, acts which, even without any fault, give rise or may give rise to (i) damage to free competition/initiative, (ii) dominance of relevant market of goods/services, (iii) arbitrary increase of profits, and (iv) abusive exercise of a dominant position. Prevention, determination and antitrust procedures include the preparation of administrative investigation, as well as the investigation itself, for determination and administrative processes and for the application of sanctions.In any of them, CADE may require the Principal’s consent decree concerning the practice under investigation or its injurious effects, whenever, in a judgment of convenience and opportunity, duly grounded, it understands that it meets the interests protected by law. The consent termmust specify the obligations of the Principal’s party not to practice the investigated conduct or its harmful effects, to determine the amount of the fine, if it violates them in whole or in part, and of the pecuniary contribution to the Fund for the Defense of Diffuse Rights, when applicable. The Principal’s party may, just once, submit a proposal of consent decree term, which not only does not suspend the progress of the process but may also be rejected if the authority does not reach an agreement with the Principal’s parties to its terms. If the term is signed, it will have, while it is being performed, public character, of extrajudicial enforceable instrument, with suspensive effect of the process. CADE may alter its conditions if its excessive onerousness to the Principal’s party is proved, provided that this does not cause any harm to third parties or the community. At the end of the established period in the consent decree term, the proceeding will be filed if all the conditions set forth therein have been performed; if they 4 Source: http://www.cade.gov.br/. 5 Source: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Decreto/D9679.htm#art10.
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