New Business Environment Law (Law 14.195 / 21)

Dear customers and friends,

The New Business Environment Law (Law 14.195 / 21) was sanctioned by the president of the Republic, and is already in force. It alters many negotiation and procedural points throughout the Brazilian territory. It is a law that came to seek to improve Brazil’s ranking in DOING BUSINESS (https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/doingbusiness), which could attract more international investment to the country.

You have a point of attention, which has urgency: the citations, which are the acts for which the defendant, the interested party, or the executed are summoned to join the action, offering defense, have become preferably Electronic (by e-mail). With this, received the citation email, the cited will have a period of 3 (three) business days to confirm receipt, if receipt is not confirmed there will be an attempt to citation by other means (bailiff, letter, among others).

For those who do not confirm receipt and are cited by other means, at the first opportunity to express themselves in the process must justify why the citation received is not confirmed by e-mail, and if there is no just cause for the lack of confirmation, the act may be considered as an attack on the dignity of justice and result in a fine of up to 5% of the value of the cause.

The law establishes that, for citation purposes, the Regional Council of Justice will draft a resolution to define how the registration and updating of the database will take place, which has become mandatory: all of us will have to register e-mail for citation receipt purposes.

The problem is that, until the regulation of the CNJ takes place, the emails provided to the Tax Administration (Federal Revenue and state revenue), may be used for this purpose, that is, those emails provided when opening companies, or when submitting the annual income tax adjustment Declaration of individuals and legal entities, may be the email used to send a quote.

Many accountants report their own emails to Receitas Federal, Secretaria da Fazenda do Estado, among other public agencies, so we recommend that each of you check with your accountants about what will be the email informed in the Tax Administration records, and what will be the procedure for you to receive the electronic citations in time to present defense in any legal process.

Written by: Maura Varella, executive partner.

Lawyer, graduated in law, with emphasis in civil and civil procedural law, from the Faculty of Law of the University of Vale do Paraíba (1995), enrolled in the Brazilian Bar Association, São Paulo Section (1996), specialist in civil and family law from the Faculty of Law of the University of São Paulo (1998), postgraduate in business law from the Brazilian School of law / OAB, member of the Business Law Commission of the 33rd subsection of the OAB/SP, Deputy Head of ceremonial and protocol of the 33rd subsection of the OAB/SP, author of articles. Partner responsible for the litigation area of TM Associados.