> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Brazil Built a Chamber for Airport Concession Disputes. It May Not Touch the Risk Matrix. - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/brazil-anac-concilianac-airport-concession-disputes-risk-matrix-2026/ - Published: 2026-11-03T15:24:45.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-08T05:21:35.000Z - Description: Brazil's civil aviation regulator created ConciliAnac by Portaria 20.185 of 13 October 2026 to settle airport concession disputes by negotiation. Article 6 excludes eight classes of matter, beginning with any change to the contract's risk matrix. A commission has 60 days. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: Brazil, aviation, Infrastructure, Compliance, Analysis **Quick summary:** Brazil's civil aviation regulator created a chamber on 13 October 2026 to settle disputes with airport concessionaires by negotiation rather than litigation. Its founding instrument lists eight classes of matter the chamber may not negotiate, and the first is any change to a contract's risk matrix. A commission gets 60 days. By LCN Business Desk An airport concessionaire in dispute with its regulator now has somewhere to go in Brazil that is neither a courtroom nor an arbitration. What it cannot do there is reopen who carries which risk. The Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil signed [Portaria nº 20.185](https://www.anac.gov.br/assuntos/legislacao/legislacao-1/portarias/2026/portaria-20185?ref=lacaribenanews.com) on 13 October 2026, published in the Diário Oficial da União of 16 October at Seção 1, pages 130 to 132\. It creates the Câmara de Negociação e Solução de Controvérsias, known as ConciliAnac, to settle disputes between the agency and regulated and sector entities inside concession contracts. Article 6 lists what the chamber may not take. Among the eight exclusions is \*"alteração da matriz de risco"\*, any change to the contract's risk matrix. ## What can the chamber actually settle? Contract interpretation, application and amendment, and technical disputes over rights the parties are free to dispose of. Article 5 admits questions of the interpretation, application and alteration of contract clauses. It admits highly technical disagreements involving available patrimonial rights, and legal or regulatory questions in a concrete case that require an ANAC decision under a concession contract. A dispute already in court or in arbitration may be brought in, subject to the instrument's Chapter X. ## What is shut out? Eight classes, and they describe the regulator's core powers. | Excluded by Article 6 | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | | Change to the contractual risk matrix | The allocation of who bears what | | Matters waiving regulatory prerogatives or the police power | The enforcement authority itself | | Defences against enforcement action, and appeals against Agency decisions | The sanction track | | Final administrative merit decisions | Unless revisable, litigated or arbitrated | | Matters before a federal consensus body or the Tribunal de Contas da União | Already elsewhere | | Abstract theses and legal consultations | Unless a concrete case needs them | | Matters needing legislative authorisation | Beyond the agency to grant | | Where conciliation is manifestly unfeasible | The catch-all | \*Portaria nº 20.185, Article 6\. The right-hand column states what each exclusion protects.\* Taken together the list draws the chamber tightly around the commercial middle of a concession. Pricing a dispute over how a clause is read is in. Reopening the bargain that clause sits inside is out. One relief valve exists. Where a proposal reaches matters outside ANAC's exclusive competence, Article 6 may still proceed with the consent of the competent public body, which then names two members to the negotiating commission. **A regulator that will negotiate how a contract is read, and will not negotiate who carries the risk inside it.** ## Who sits in the room? The agency's own lawyer presides, with three technical superintendencies beside him. Under Article 8 the chamber is presided over by the Procurador-Chefe of PF-ANAC, the federal attorney's office attached to the agency, with a PF-ANAC procurator as substitute. Two members each, one titular and one alternate, come from the superintendencies for governance and environment, for the economic regulation of airports, and for airport infrastructure. The portaria is signed by Tiago Chagas Faierstein as Diretor-Presidente and Diogo Souza Moraes as Procurador-Chefe. The counsel who signed it is the office that chairs it. ## How long does a case take? Sixty days to a proposal, with two possible extensions and a stop clock. Article 21 gives the negotiating commission 60 calendar days from its first meeting to produce a proposed consensual solution. The ConciliAnac president may extend that once by an equal period on a reasoned request from the Procurador-Coordenador, and the Diretoria Colegiada may authorise a further extension with the president's agreement. The clock is suspended while an outcome depends on a body outside ANAC. ## What does a settlement look like when it lands? A Termo de Consenso, signed within ten days by the agency's chief executive and the company. The Diretoria Colegiada approves the proposed solution, and a Termo de Consenso is then drawn up recording the obligations agreed. It is signed by the Diretor-Presidente together with the regulated entity's legal representative, within 10 calendar days of that final decision. Judicial homologation appears only where court proceedings are already running. Sector reporting has read the deadlines as a throughput limit. Agência iNFRA reported on 29 October that the chamber is likely to form only around two commissions a year, which is an inference from the timetable rather than a figure in the instrument. ## Why does this matter outside Brazil? Because the same bargains are being struck across the Caribbean, and the disputes arrive later. Guyana is negotiating a hub arrangement at its main airport: [the President said on 29 September that the country is ready to finalise terms for a major airline to use Terminal 2 at Cheddi Jagan International as a global hub, with no carrier, terms or timeline stated](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/cjia-terminal-2-hub-deal-benchmarks-airline-incentives-2026/). In the ports, [Global Ports Holding signed a 30-year concession for Saint Vincent Cruise Port on 26 October, obliged to spend not less than US$20 million in phase one and US$60 million in phase two](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/global-ports-holding-saint-vincent-cruise-port-30-year-concession-2026/). What a dispute can do to a contract in the region is already on the record. [The Office of the Prime Minister settled two disputes with Lindsayca Guyana Inc on 14 May 2026, raising the Wales contract 12.8 per cent on US$759 million](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/guyana-lindsayca-wales-97-million-settlement-first-power-deadline-2026/) in exchange for a first-power date, with the right to reinstate penalties if the date were missed. That settlement moved the price. ConciliAnac is built so that the equivalent conversation about risk allocation cannot happen inside it. ## What does the instrument not settle? Its own effect, and what happens to a dispute it refuses. The portaria sets out eligibility, composition, deadlines and the form of a settlement. It does not state how a matter excluded under Article 6 proceeds instead, beyond leaving the court and arbitration routes where they were. It sets no target for how many disputes the chamber should take, and it carries no figure for the cost of running it. For a ministry or an operator drafting a concession in the region, the usable content is the exclusion list. It is a regulator's own statement of which parts of a concession it will discuss once signed, and which parts it will not. ### The entities - **Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil** is Brazil's civil aviation regulator and the author of the portaria. - **ConciliAnac** is the Câmara de Negociação e Solução de Controvérsias created by that portaria to settle concession disputes by negotiation. - **Portaria nº 20.185** is the instrument of 13 October 2026 creating the chamber, published in the Diário Oficial da União on 16 October 2026. - **Risk matrix** is the allocation in a concession contract of which party bears which risk, and the first class of matter Article 6 excludes from negotiation. - **PF-ANAC** is the federal attorney's office attached to the agency, whose Procurador-Chefe presides over the chamber. - **Diretoria Colegiada** is ANAC's collegiate board, which approves a proposed consensual solution. - **Termo de Consenso** is the document recording the obligations agreed, signed by the Diretor-Presidente and the regulated entity. - **Tribunal de Contas da União** is Brazil's federal audit court, and a matter already before it is excluded from the chamber. ### What the title card says - Headline: Brazil's aviation regulator built a settlement chamber for airport concessions, and it may not touch the risk matrix. - Date the portaria was signed: 13 October 2026. - Where it was published: the Diário Oficial da União of 16 October 2026, Seção 1, pages 130 to 132. - Classes of matter Article 6 excludes from negotiation: eight. - The first of them: any change to the contract's risk matrix. - Days a negotiating commission has to produce a proposal: 60 calendar days from its first meeting. - Extensions available: one by the chamber's president, and a further one by the collegiate board. - Days to sign a Termo de Consenso after the board's final decision: 10. - Who presides over the chamber: the Procurador-Chefe of the agency's own federal attorney's office. - Superintendencies represented, two members each: three. - Commissions a year the sector press expects: about two, which is an inference from the deadlines and not a figure in the instrument. ## Frequently Asked Questions What did Brazil's aviation regulator create? ConciliAnac, a negotiation and dispute-settlement chamber for concession contracts, established by Portaria nº 20.185 of 13 October 2026 and published in the Diário Oficial da União on 16 October 2026 at Seção 1, pages 130 to 132. What can it not negotiate? Eight classes of matter under Article 6, beginning with any change to the contract's risk matrix. The others include matters that would waive regulatory prerogatives or the police power, enforcement defences and appeals, final administrative merit decisions unless revisable, matters already before a federal consensus body or the Tribunal de Contas da União, abstract legal theses, anything requiring legislative authorisation, and cases where conciliation is manifestly unfeasible. How long does a case run? A negotiating commission has 60 calendar days from its first meeting to produce a proposed solution. The chamber's president may extend that once by an equal period, and the collegiate board may authorise one further extension. The period is suspended while an outcome depends on a body outside the agency. Who chairs it? The Procurador-Chefe of PF-ANAC, the federal attorney's office attached to the agency, with two members each from the superintendencies for governance and environment, for the economic regulation of airports, and for airport infrastructure. What happens when the parties agree? The collegiate board approves the proposed solution and a Termo de Consenso is drawn up recording the obligations agreed, signed by the Diretor-Presidente and the regulated entity's legal representative within 10 calendar days of that decision.