Badin, 32, was elected yesterday at the federal senate's plenary session. He received 27 votes in favour of his nomination and 16 votes against. He will serve a term of two years.
Badin was appointed CADE's attorney general in 2005, having previously worked as chief executive of the Brazilian Reinsurance Institute and before that as chief of staff at Brazil's Secretariat of Economic Law (SDE).
Competition lawyers in Brazil are optimistic about the appointment.
"We are very hopeful that Badin will make a good CADE president," says Leonardo Peres da Rocha e Silva, a partner at Pinheiro Neto Advogados in Brasília. "He has a reputation of being hands-on, energetic and intelligent among the antitrust community."
Eduardo Caminati, a partner at Pedro Dutra Advogados in São Paulo, thinks Badin has the potential to be an "excellent president" of CADE. "He mixes young blood with experience in the antitrust field, and he played a very important role as CADE's attorney general, taking the authority's position in judicial disputes to a higher level," says Caminati. "I have no doubt that Badin has the ability and capacity to do the same as president."
Tito Amaral de Andrade, a partner at Machado Meyer Sendacz e Opice Advogados in São Paulo, adds that Badin is "very intelligent and hard-working, and has in-depth knowledge of the system."
Lawyers say Badin's main challenges in the immediate future include lobbying for approval of reforms to Brazil's competition act, and cooperating with the SDE on the new electronic submissions procedure for merger filings.
"Another challenge will be working with the federal and state prosecutor's offices to enhance Brazil's leniency policy," says Peres da Rocha e Silva.
RB
(Global Competition Review 05.11.2008)
