Administrative Council for Economic Defense

The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Economica, CADE) is Brazil's national competition regulator, an agency of the Brazilian government created on September 10, 1962 under the Ministry of Labor during President Joao Goulart's administration through Federal Law No. 4,137, with a mission focused on guiding, inspecting, preventing and investigating abuse of economic power. It underwent significant reform through Federal Law No. 12,529, approved in November 2011 and effective from May 2012, which modernized its organizational and procedural frameworks; it now comprises three principal bodies, the Administrative Court, the General Superintendence and the Department of Economic Studies, operates under the oversight of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, and is headquartered in Brasilia.