The beef industry has been the main driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in the last 40 years. This situation has started to reverse in the last ten years, thanks to two agreements between the main meatpackers, NGOs and the government, in which the former commit to stop using any of their suppliers involved in illegal deforestation. The purpose of this contribution is to analyze the features of the main institutional arrangements that emerged aimed at guaranteeing that cattle suppliers do not cause further deforestation, their progress, and limits toward achieving those goals. Our analysis draws on a historical review of the events underpinning the process of building and adopting rules in the beef supply chain, complemented with information from semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the public and private sector, and civil society, in the main beef producing states in the Brazilian Amazon. We show that meatpacking companies' effective control of cattle ranchers only got underway with the implementation of more stringent and innovative public policies. More, the existing cattle agreements have enabled more progress towards eliminating deforestation but control only occurs over direct suppliers of the slaughterhouses, minimal law compliance is required, and the accountability mechanisms of the agreements are still weak. We discuss possible pathways to improve the effectiveness of existing commitments.