Federal Supreme Court could break Brazil’s post office company’s monopoly

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) could put an end to the judicial attempts of Brazil´s post office company, the Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos (ECT), to maintain its monopoly on postal services during the plenary session tomorrow, when it resumes consideration of an appeal by the Brazilian Association of Distribution Companies (Abraed), which represents almost 50 associates. The services rendered by Correios and in some cases also by private companies move R$5 billion a year. The trend of the judgement is for the STF to maintain ECT exclusivity for letters and other documents posted in closed envelopes, for which there is a concern by the sender to make the government responsible for the secrecy of the correspondence, which the Federal Constitution declares inviolable. But the ECT will not achieve its broadest objective, which is a monopoly as well on general delivery services for volumes containing commercial items. In the beginning of the judgement of this polemic question, in June, the narrator of the case, Justice Marco Aurélio Mendes de Farias Mello, made a vigorous defense against the monopoly. Justice Eros Roberto Grau anticipated his vote to the contrary, and Justice Joaquim Barbosa Gomes called for a review of the material. Thus, the still-undefined scoreboard shows a 1-1 tie. The “suit challenging failure to uphold a fundamental concept” of the Abraed interests thousands of private companies that transport deliveries, direct mail and bills, which employ more than 1.3 million people, according to the entity´s attorneys. The sector estimates that almost 15,000 companies operate in this sector. Justice Mello, in an opinion of more than 50 pages, totally endorsed the Abraed thesis that Law 6538/78, which gave ECT the postal monopoly, was not continued by the Constitution of 1988. For him, the STF should support an interpretation of the Constitution that takes into consideration “greater efficiency” of the postal services in the face of current situations, “respecting the fundamental principals of the Charter.” © 2005 NoticiasFinancieras – Gazeta Mercantil – All rights reserved