Welcome to Juntos, our bulletin that explores antitrust and competition developments across US-Latin America. In this issue, we look at key headlines from throughout 2024

Brazil

Brazil’s CADE publishes new report on data, market power, and potential competition in merger reviews. In April, Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, or CADE) released a new report produced by the working group on mergers of the International Competition Network (ICN). The ICN advocates for the adoption of improved standards and procedures in competition policy around the world, and increased convergence and cooperation. The report focuses on merger reviews in digital markets and the challenges of applying traditional antitrust principles to novel markets that bring new issues related to data control, market power, and potential competition. The goal of the report is to analyze the tools and methods needed to evaluate these new markets in the context of the merger review process. It leverages international research carried out with competition authorities around the world. The full text of the report can be found here.

United States

Court halts FTC’s ban on noncompete restrictions nationwide. Earlier this year, the FTC finalized a rule banning any new and most existing noncompete restrictions for US workers. The rule was scheduled to take effect on September 4, but on August 20, 2024, a federal court struck down the rule after finding that the FTC did not have the authority to issue the substantive rule and additionally had enacted it after an arbitrary and capricious process. As a result, the rule will not go into effect, unless an appeals court reverses the lower court’s order. Despite this decision setting aside the FTC’s federal rule, however, employers in the US remain subject to a wide range of state and local laws governing – and in some cases, banning – noncompete provisions for workers. For more, see our Noncompetes and Competition Enforcement Hub.

DOJ and state attorneys general sue software maker for antitrust violations related to its AI-driven product. In a first-of-its-kind enforcement action, an August 2024 lawsuit against RealPage, Inc. by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and multiple state attorneys general alleges that the company’s pricing algorithms and AI-driven software for commercial residential landlords facilitate unlawful information sharing between landlords, leading to higher prices for renters, in violation of federal antitrust law. The enforcers further allege that RealPage unlawfully monopolized the market for commercial revenue management software for multifamily housing rentals by “amassing a massive reservoir of competitively sensitive data” from customers and using its “self-reinforcing data and scale advantages,” to the exclusion of potential rival software providers. This is the first time that the DOJ will litigate claims based on so-called “algorithmic collusion,” and the case stands as a potential bellwether for government enforcement against the use of algorithm- and AI-driven pricing tools.

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Edited by Carsten Reichel and Amadeu Ribeiro via DLA Piper