BMA Review #80
INSTITUTIONAL
Lifetime Achievement Award: A life dedicated to the law
By BMA Advogados
Paulo Cezar Aragão, one of BMA Advogados’ founding partners, receives Chamber and Partners’ highest accolade
SPECIAL TRIBUTE
“THE PELÉ OF BRAZIL’S LEGAL PROFESSION”
By BMA Advogados
Considered by many to be Brazil’s foremost lawyer, Paulo Cezar Aragão is revered by partners of the law firm he helped to build
TAX
Proposed legislation to tax investments outside Brazil
By Hermano A. C. Notaroberto Barbosa
Since April 2023, the federal government has intended to introduce significant changes in the taxation of investments outside Brazil held by individuals who are Brazilian tax resi-dents, including financial investments, offshore companies, and trusts.
LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT, COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS AND FRANCHISES
Brazil’s Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of other ways of structuring work
By Cibelle Linero, Tatiana Sister, Larissa Medeiros Rocha and Letícia Gomes de Oliveira
The decisions reinforce the position that employment is not the only way to structure work and that other models, such as outsourcing, contracting services from professionals’ legal entities, and franchise agreements, are also valid.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Environmental regulation of offshore wind energy
By Márcio Silva Pereira, Marlus Oliveira and Alexandre Dantas
Offshore wind farms are growing in Brazil, but certain aspects of the environmental regulation of the sector require attention to establish favorable conditions for investment in the sector.
DATA PRIVACY AND CYBERSECURITY
Regulation of Brazil’s General Data Protection Law
By Felipe Palhares
These days, companies that do not comply with the LGPD lose businesses, especially with organizations that have implemented privacy programs, since doing business with companies that are unable to demonstrate their compliance with the law can generate significant risks.
ENERGY
Brief Notes on Decommissioning in the Oil & Gas Sector
By Carlos Frederico Lucchetti Bingemer and Rodrigo de Teive e Argollo Mariani
As the production cycle in oil and natural gas fields approaches the end of its lifespan, decommissioning of offshore and onshore facilities has become a growing concern for the industry and presents significant challenges – and opportunities.
COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS AND FRANCHISES
20 years of flex-fuel vehicles in Brazil and the challenge of sustainable reinvention for the automotive industry
By Tatiana Dratovsky Sister and Priscila Prado Faloppa
In March of this year, Brazil’s automotive industry celebrated the 20th anniversary of flex-fuel technology, which made it possible to fuel light-duty vehicles with ethanol, gasoline, or a mixture of both fuels. It was in March 2003 that Volkswagen launched to the national market the technology still used today through the Gol 1.6 Total Flex model.
DISPUTE RESOLUTION
Arbitration and public registries
By Luiz Fernando Fraga, Mario Felippe de Lemos Gelli and João Rafael Castro de Oliveira
Widely known and accepted in the legal and business worlds, arbitrations still face obstacles in public registries such as the Commercial Registries and the Immovable Property Registries, which are reluctant to accept that arbitral awards have the same force as judicial decisions.
DISPUTE RESOLUTION
The CAM-CCBC’s New Corporate Arbitration Rules
By Matheus Barcelos, Guilherme Faoro and Julio Abritta
In effect since April of this year, the new rules seek to improve corporate arbitrations where the decision may affect third parties that are neither claimant nor respondent in the proceeding, addressing difficulties frequently encountered in practice.
DISPUTE RESOLUTION & FINANCE AND CAPITAL MARKETS
Attachment of investment fund units: the implications of the Superior Court of Justice’s decision
By Gustavo Santos Kulesza and Conrado de Castro Stievani
At the end of 2022, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ – Superior Tribunal de Justiça, the highest court in non-constitutional matters) took the position that attachment of units in an investment fund, as security for a debt under collection, does not transfer to the execution creditor the risk inherent in the investment or, consequently, ownership rights in the units. Any fluctuation of the value of the units subject to attachment, therefore, does not affect the creditor, either to the creditor’s advantage or detriment, and consequently any growth in the value of the fund unit will not be passed on to the execution creditor (Appeal REsp 1.885.119/RJ).