What happened
Brazil’s competition authority, CADE, opened an administrative case on 19 November 2024 into Aprix, pricing software sold to fuel stations by Intelprice Soluções de Precificação. According to CADE’s final report, the question was whether the software, and a recommendation to use it, could encourage competing stations to adopt uniform prices.
According to CADE’s economists, the software watched competitors’ public prices, combined them with information from the client, and recommended prices designed to maximise that client’s profit. CADE’s President described Intelprice as specialising in pricing based on artificial intelligence.
CADE’s final report quotes one of the company’s marketing messages: “baixar preço quase nunca vale a pena. Resista!” (cutting prices is almost never worth it. Resist!). The report says the marketing suggested a possible push towards uniform conduct.
On 8 April 2026 CADE’s Tribunal approved a settlement with Intelprice unanimously, according to the session certificate. Intelprice paid 70,803.40 reais. On 2 September 2026 the Tribunal closed the case against Minaspetro, a fuel retailers’ union in Minas Gerais, for insufficient evidence, and suspended the case against Intelprice pending compliance.
What an auditable version would have shown
CADE’s economists estimated statistically significant price rises after stations signed with Aprix: 0.02 to 0.03 reais a litre for petrol and ethanol and 0.01 to 0.04 reais for diesel. There was no significant effect for compressed natural gas. Their study said higher average prices did not on their own show that the software caused them.
Under the settlement, the company admitted the facts set out in a restricted history of the conduct, which the settlement heads as an acknowledgement of participation in the conduct. That history is not public. The rapporteur’s vote of September 2026 describes the acknowledgement as one of potential competitive risks. No finding of collusion has been made against any party.
According to CADE, Intelprice also supplied extracts of its source code and explanations of how its rules worked. An auditable system would make it possible to trace whose data went in, what price was recommended and which client received it.
Where the gap was
According to CADE, the same vendor was providing pricing recommendations to businesses competing with each other.
The settlement requires Intelprice to separate each client’s price and strategy data and use confidentiality clauses so sensitive information is not shared between competitors. It must not require clients to follow its suggested prices. Its compliance programme must also cover the language used in its marketing.
An EgressGate is designed to check whether data leaving a system is sensitive and whether its destination is permitted, before it leaves.
A ConductRecord keeps each recommendation, the data it drew on and the client it went to.
EgressGate and ConductRecord are Headlights designs.
What governance should have looked like
Under the settlement, CADE can inspect Intelprice’s premises and pricing system on notice and require an independent audit of its compliance measures. Intelprice must also tell CADE when its clients reach 20 percent of the market in a municipality.
Where one pricing tool serves competing businesses, best practice would be to separate each client’s data and keep a clear record of what the tool recommended and to whom.
That gives a regulator something concrete to inspect: what information went into a recommendation, where it went and whether one client’s information reached another.
Failure Pattern: according to Brazil’s competition authority, a pricing tool sold to competing fuel stations drew on their competitors’ prices and was marketed with messages urging clients not to cut prices, and its maker settled over possible coordination without any finding of collusion.
Governance Principle: a vendor whose pricing tool serves competing businesses should be able to show whose data fed each recommendation, what it recommended to whom, and that one client’s data did not reach another.
The reference implementation of EgressGate and ConductRecord is open source. It lives at github.com/saffronandindia/headlights-oss, Apache 2.0 licensed and free to install. The repository is public now.
Sources
- Cade celebra acordo em investigação sobre uso de algoritmo de precificação (CADE, 8 April 2026)
- CADE, Processo Administrativo 08700.006280/2024-60, public file on SEI: Certidão de Julgamento of 2 September 2026 (SEI 1815098), rapporteur’s vote (SEI 1811857), Nota Técnica 26/2026 (SEI 1758901), Nota Técnica 16/2024 (SEI 1443796)
- CADE, Requerimento de TCC 08700.010553/2024-71, public file on SEI: Termo de Compromisso de Cessação (SEI 1734391), Certidão de Julgamento of 8 April 2026 (SEI 1734486), President’s vote (SEI 1732928)