Executives at Ambev, Brazilian wing of Anheuser-Busch InBev, to be investigated
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Brazil’s Justice Ministry will begin probing allegations that executives at Ambev, Latin America’s largest brewer, concealed evidence of anti-competitive practices from authorities, Bloomberg is reporting.
That is intriguing because Sao Paulo-based Ambev is one of the largest divisions of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Ambev’s brands include Antarctica, Bohemia and Brahma beers. The subsidiary has been known for a long time for dominating the beer market in Brazil. But authorities are alleging that Ambev has used its market power for ill by pressuring retailers.
According to Bloomberg, the justice ministry will follow a recommendation from Cade, as the country’s antitrust agency is known, and open an investigation of Ambev’s executives. The probe, which could result in civil charges against the executives, comes after Cade imposed a record $187.9 million fine on Ambev last month. The names of the executives won’t be disclosed for now.
Documents copied during a raid in Ambev’s headquarters “show that there is evidence against its administrators,” said Cade member Fernando de Magalhaes Furlan, who oversaw the investigation of Ambev. “There’s especially evidence related to actions they took to cover their true market practices from competition officials.” From the story:
In a regulatory filing on July 22, Ambev denied any wrongdoing in connection with its marketing practices.
Under Brazilian law, the antitrust division of the Justice Ministry has discretion on whether to open an investigation based on the evidence forwarded by Cade, regardless of the agency’s recommendation.
Brazil’s antitrust agency levied its fine against Ambev on July 22 for limiting competition by discouraging retailers from stocking other brands. The amount of the fine represents 2 percent of the company’s revenue in 2003, the year before the anticompetitive measures began.
AmBev hurt competition by restricting retailers from carrying other brands and rewarding them with gifts, perks and discounts, Cade ruled. Retailers were required to keep 90 percent of their inventory in Ambev products, Furlan said July 22.
Ambev said last month that it will appeal the fine and hasn’t accounted for it in interim financial statements because it believes it will prevail in court challenges.
Wow. This is about to get extremely interesting. Hang on tight.
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Jeremiah McWilliams is a native Virginian who came to the Post-Dispatch in early 2007 to cover beer and other consumer products. He previously covered manufacturing for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, Va. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. 
This shouldnt surprise anyone. The bars and restaurants here ( in Brazil ) can tell you the pressure they are under. Skol dominates all brands here. If you don’t play ball with Skol, you have no business.
$187.9 million fine… Hey Brito, get your wallet out!
As your last comment started Jeremiah WOW. that is why I used the tag line along time ago. I have access to the inside and have seen this stuff coming a long time ago. When brito threw a fit about the warren pay and wish he would have shorten the packages.
the inbred people seem to want nothing but 20 somethings working for them and they dont care about anything but a pay check. They have proven over and over that they dont want input , just do what we say. As when in this paper brito was quoted as saying after ask what they hope to learn from AB. ” we bought them. Its what they will learn from us.
There countries , Brazil and belguim are both some what more lawless then America. They feel that they should be allowed to do what they like. Such as when they went up against the ST.L fire Marshal about how many people could be on the 9th floor. Due to safety concerns and the law they where held to a smaller number of workers than they wanted on that floor. ABI told the hearing at the end from what I understand ,that they needed to change the fire code to accomadate ABI and not doing so was not good for St.L. So lets put people in danger if there is a fire just so they could cram more people into a space thus costing less in office space.
the cost savings from all there cuts would be less hard to take. If they did not pay close to the same amount saved to the non american execs. in bonuses.The lies keep coming, No more lay offs….. and there are people being let go almost every week it seems like.
carlos, dont count on heaven ……
Way off topic but…WOW, you might know some information…granted you rambled…but you need to learn English. WOW!
Classic, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
The older I get the more I see of the rise and fall of anything.
haha, u know what they did? they gave the bars fridges with one of their beer brands on it, and said: only put our beer in this fridge… dont tell me that doesn’t happen in the US with coke, gatorade…
Matt, yes I ramble. When posting I do not check to see if I write there or their as proper. I dont check spelling nor grammer because I type it fast and send it. I see allot of this on the blogs.
The point I make is that I have a ton of friends that are there and allot that have been let go.( I was one that was lucky enough to retire right before the takeover.( evem though they are messing with us now on that front.) All agree that ABI is a bully Company now. The ones that are still there hate it and are looking for jobs or they are praying for a package. The one’s that are gone are happy they are not there now, even with the finacial crunch some of them are feeling.
sorry if you dont ( woops ) don’t like it but hey to bad. Bottom line, in my opinion ABI sucks mainly because of the inhuman way they treat american workers. That is why allot of people say they are swithing to miller . Even though its non american owned they never did to the american workers what ABI is doing to theres.
Wow - anyone who criticizes spelling on here is obviously not reading for substance. If one can’t argue a point, then attack the author. Anyway, glad you got out before it got so ugly.
Even the Brazilans don’t like Carlos the Great. Imagine that.
Too bad the names will not be “disclosed for now”; it could get very interesting if some of the transplanted executives in STL are on the list!