Legal framing and treatment of predatory pricing in Brazil

Abstract

This paper analyses the business practice of manipulating price of products and services under the antitrust view and aims to point out if this practice eliminates competition and discourages the entry of new competitors in a specific market. Special attention will be granted to the violation of the economic order, as identified by Item XV of art. 36 of the Federal law 12,529 of November 30, 2012, so-called "predatory price". The "predatory price" will be examined under the free competition, social justice and human dignity, as provided by the Federal Constitution. Therefore, it will be examined the legal elements of the "predatory price" and the development of the case law and doctrine. The importance of this paper comes from the need to search and point out more objective criteria for the legality of the price of products/services below the product costs and highlight the freedom to exercise the prices that businessmen want, in view of existing competition in the Brazilian market, mainly those informatics products.