Economists Urge Brazil's Chamber to Pass Bill Expanding Cade Powers Over Big Techs

By Tom Whitfield

A group of prominent Brazilian economists will send a letter to Chamber of Deputies President Hugo Motta on Friday defending PL 4.675/2025, a bill that would give the antitrust regulator Cade new powers over the largest digital platforms, with a floor vote scheduled for Tuesday.

The signatories include Octávio de Barros, Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Paulo Furquim de Azevedo and Camila Cabral Pires Alves. The letter also goes to the Chamber's college of leaders. The bill would authorize the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) to identify, monitor and impose specific obligations on the so-called Big Techs, aiming to prevent abuses of economic power and preserve competition in digital markets.

What do the economists argue?

The platforms have resisted the bill. The economists push back on that framing in their letter, arguing the measure does not seek to regulate the entire digital economy. Its purpose, they write, is to limit abuses by the sector's giants, preserve competition and guarantee conditions for small businesses to operate, innovate and grow.

The letter names the documented harms directly: "When the same company controls access to the consumer and competes with those who depend on that access, incentives arise for conduct that no small business can discipline on its own. Among the economic problems already documented in the literature are self-preferencing, data appropriation, unilateral changes, blocking of direct sales channels and preventive acquisitions of rivals."

In the economists' assessment, the bill's principal merit is to "create permanent institutional capacity, within Cade, to monitor the few agents that organize digital markets, without regulating the rest of the digital economy."

What would it mean for consumers and small businesses?

The signatories argue the practical effects would reach prices and productivity. Protections for digital businesses, they say, can produce lower prices for consumers. Small businesses with access to their own data and transparent rules can grow, gain scale and narrow the productivity gap with leading firms.

The bill would also strengthen public digital infrastructure such as Pix, Brazil's instant payment system, according to the letter. "Creating interoperable alternatives is as important as punishing abusive behavior. Agents of systemic relevance cannot harm interoperability and national payment solutions. This translates into gains for consumers and the strengthening of public, open and interoperable infrastructures," the economists write.

What happens next?

The Chamber is set to vote the bill on Tuesday. The letter's arrival two business days before the vote signals an effort to shore up support among Motta and party leaders against platform lobbying. If passed, the measure would hand Cade a permanent monitoring mandate over the small set of companies that structure Brazil's digital markets — while leaving the rest of the digital economy outside its scope.