Cade denies request from third parties interested in the Azul-American operation

SG-Cade (General Superintendence of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense) rejected the requests for qualification as interested third party made by Abra, Gol's controller, and two institutes - IBCI (Brazilian Institute of Research and Innovation) and IPSConsumo (Institute of Research and Studies of Society and Consumption) - in the operation involving Azul and American Airlines.

The operation, which consists of the acquisition of the North American company's shareholding in the Brazilian company, was formally notified by the airlines to the antitrust body in early April, around two months after the Cade plenary approved the increase in the minority stake held by United Airlines in Azul, which increased from 2.02% to approximately 8%.

Cade's general superintendent, Alexandre Barreto, welcomed the body's technical note, which understood that the petitioners did not present new factual elements that could contribute in a relevant way to the analysis - such as, for example, information that was unavailable or difficult to access for Cade.

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"Instead, they base such allegations predominantly on data and sources of a public nature, such as journalistic news, information from regulatory agencies, records of previous administrative processes of this Cade, excerpts from bylaws and announcements of relevant facts."

According to the SG's assessment, this is, to a large extent, information that is already known or can be readily accessed, if it proves to be relevant to the investigation of this case. "It is worth noting that repeating the same allegations in different manifestations does not make them probative elements capable of demonstrating their veracity."

The understanding was that none of the three petitioners met either the standards of documentary substantiation or the standards of relevance of the request for intervention.

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In relation to Abra, the technical assessment was that the statement presented does not provide additional substantial elements regarding the operation. "The points listed by Abra are based on information in the public domain, such as data from the applicants, market share estimates, Azul's new bylaws and its governance structure, relevant facts disclosed by the company, as well as references to Cade's jurisprudence."

Therefore, according to the note, all these evidentiary elements presented by Abra are of prior knowledge to the municipality, "so that they are not capable of innovating the set of information already available to Cade and, therefore, do not contribute in a relevant way to the procedural instruction".

Regarding IPSConsumo, the note considered that, although the institute presents itself as an association focused on consumer protection, there is no evidence that its institutional purposes include the defense of interests and rights protected by the CDC (Consumer Defense Code).

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Regarding IBCI, the understanding was that the entity does not have among its objectives the defense or promotion of the interests and rights of consumers, "not even as an abstract value that should guide its actions".

The technical evaluation concluded that some of the allegations brought by the petitioners are simply not relevant for the purposes of analyzing the merger - citing as an example, suggestions or references related to an alleged practice of gun jumping (indications of premature integration between the companies) in the United/Azul and American/Azul operations, or the existence of an alleged coordination via codeshare agreements (route sharing).

"It is understood that, of the allegations of potential competition problems brought by Abra, IBCI and IPSConsumo effectively relevant to the merger in question, all have already been raised in the United/Azul AC (merger), correlated with the present operation under analysis."

When contacted, the petitioners and Azul did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Source: CNN