On 5 October 2026 Brazil's Conselho de Comunicação Social (CCS), the advisory body to the National Congress, approved an opinion backing PL 4675/2025. The Senate's own session record lists the report by councillor Marcus Martins as the first item on that day's agenda (Senate e-Cidadania). The opinion is non-binding. The bill itself is still in the Chamber of Deputies, and a CCS public hearing is planned for 7 December.
What the bill does
The federal government sent PL 4675/2025 to Congress in September 2025. It would create a Superintendência de Mercados Digitais (SMD) inside CADE, Brazil's antitrust authority. According to DPL News, the SMD could designate groups with global revenue above R$50 billion or Brazilian revenue above R$5 billion as having "systemic relevance". It could then impose obligations such as interoperability, data portability and transparency, aimed at self-preferencing and abuse of economic power.
The model is plainly inspired by the EU's Digital Markets Act. In March 2026 the Chamber approved an urgency request, which sends the bill straight to the floor without committee review.
The strongest case for the bill
The argument for it is serious. Ordinary antitrust is slow. A conduct case against a platform can take years, and by then the market has often tipped. Brazil's competition law was written before platform ecosystems, where one firm runs the marketplace, the payment rail, the operating system and the advertising layer. Ex ante rules aimed at a handful of gatekeepers could be more predictable than case-by-case enforcement. They could also be cheaper for smaller rivals, who cannot fund years of litigation.
The revenue thresholds are high enough that startups are not directly caught. Brazilian businesses that depend on app stores and marketplaces have real grievances.
Where the July rewrite helped
Rapporteur Aliel Machado's July 2026 substitute text answered several early objections. Teletime reports that it:
- cuts the maximum designation period from ten years to six;
- makes the systemic-relevance criteria stricter and requires CADE to assess them jointly rather than one by one;
- lets companies submit voluntary plans with technical solutions and timelines;
- requires participants in CADE hearings to declare their economic and institutional interests;
- bans dark patterns, defined as screen design that subverts users' autonomy, decision-making or free choice.
These are real improvements. A shorter designation period forces periodic re-examination. Voluntary commitments let a firm fix a problem without a blanket mandate. The dark-pattern ban targets conduct that consumer-protection law already treats as harmful. Teletime also notes this is a preliminary text that may still change.
What is still missing
Three problems remain, and a non-binding CCS endorsement does not address any of them.
First, the evidence gap. Nothing in the public record shows a documented market failure in Brazil's digital sector that existing CADE powers cannot reach. The Latin American Internet Association (ALAI), which represents Amazon, Google, Meta and X, argued against the urgency track on exactly this ground (DPL News). Its objection is self-interested, but the underlying point stands. Rules justified by what happened in Europe are not rules justified by Brazilian evidence.
Second, unverified cost claims on both sides. ALAI's study projects compliance costs of R$2.76 billion to R$11.34 billion over ten years. It also says consumers would bear 58% to 80% of that cost (Convergência Digital). The study was commissioned by the industry, and the coverage gives no independent methodology, so the figures should be treated as a bargaining position. But the government has not published a rival cost-benefit estimate either. Congress is being asked to legislate without a neutral regulatory impact analysis.
Third, discretion. Even with a shorter maximum term, CADE would decide which obligations apply to which firm. Narrow, written-in-law obligations tied to demonstrated harm would give investors and developers certainty. Open-ended discretion would give a regulator leverage over product design. For a country that wants domestic platforms to scale, that uncertainty is a cost in itself.
Governance matters as well. Brazil's Internet Steering Committee, CGI.br, has issued a public note on the bill's progress (CGI.br). Its technical note on multistakeholder participation at CADE, which we could not retrieve in readable form, points the same way: a body with this much power should be open to outside input.
A proportionate path
The CCS hearing on 7 December is a chance to get the process right. Four changes would keep the bill's benefits and cut its risks:
- Commission a published regulatory impact analysis before the floor vote, and drop the urgency track.
- Write the core obligations into the statute, and leave CADE only to designate firms and tailor remedies.
- Require a sunset review, with the burden on CADE to show the obligations are still needed.
- Give affected firms and rivals a right to appeal designation decisions on the merits before the courts.
The CCS opinion carries no legal force, so its value is in agenda-setting. Brazil can build a competition regime that addresses real gatekeeping without borrowing Europe's rigidity. That requires evidence, tight statutory drafting and review mechanisms before the bill passes, not after.