Brazil’s anti-trust regulator Cade (Administrative Council for Economic Defence) has recommended penalising the country’s troubled state oil firm Petrobras for allegedly ant-competitive behaviour towards a rival in the natural gas distribution market, according to Reuters.
Cade’s superintendent’s office probed a period from 2011 to 2015 when Petrobras offered a discounted price for natural gas transported on its own network, effectively discriminating against rival Comgas in the Sao Paulo market.
Following this recommendation, a case will be heard before a Cade tribunal in the future.
Cade has wide powers of review, investigation and punishment in furthering a culture of free competition and preventing harmful concentration of economic power.
Petrobras, with extensive offshore oil and gas interests, has been at the hub of a massive bribes-for-inflated-contracts scandal that has rocked Brazil’s economic and political status quo.