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sexta-feira, 29 de novembro de 2013

Blog post: ECJ Defines Concept of International Character of Consumer Contracts

by GILLES CUNIBERTI on NOVEMBER 18, 2013



On 14 November 2013, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in  Armin Maletic and Marianne Maletic v lastminute.com GmbH and TUI Österreich GmbH.

The issue for the Court was whether the Brussels I Regulation applied to a consumer contract concluded with a professional based in the same jurisdiction as the consumer.

On 30 December 2011, two Austrian consumers, the Maletics, booked and paid for themselves, as private individuals, a package holiday to Egypt on the website of lastminute.com for EUR 1 858 from 10 to 24 January 2012. On its website, lastminute.com, a company whose registered office is in Munich (Germany), stated that it acted as the travel agent and that the trip would be operated by TUI, which has its registered office in Vienna (Austria).

The booking concerned the Jaz Makadi Golf & Spa hotel in Hurghada (Egypt). That booking was confirmed by lastminute.com, which passed it on to TUI. Subsequently, the Maletics received a ‘confirmation/invoice’ of 5 January 2012 from TUI which, while it confirmed the information concerning the trip booked with lastminute.com, mentioned the name of another hotel, the Jaz Makadi Star Resort Spa in Hurghada. It was only on their arrival in Hurghada that the applicants in the main proceedings noticed the mistake concerning the hotel and paid a surcharge of EUR 1 036 to be able to stay in the hotel initially booked on lastminute.com’s website.

On 13 April 2012, in order to recover the surcharge paid and to be compensated for the inconvenience which affected their holiday, the applicants in the main proceedings brought an action before an Austrian Court seeking payment from lastminute.com and TUI, jointly and severally of the sum of EUR 1 201.38 together with interest and costs.

The Austrian court retained jurisdiction over Lastminute on the ground of Article 15 of the Brussels Regulation, but declined it with respect to the Austrian party, ruling that the Regulation did not apply to a domestic dispute, and that another Austrian court had jurisdiction pursuant to Austrian civil procedure.

The CJEU held that the dispute was international in character.

28 If, as stated in paragraph 26 of this judgment, the international character of the legal relationship at issue need not necessarily derive from the involvement, either because of the subject-matter of the proceedings or the respective domiciles of the parties, of a number of Contracting States, it must be held, as the Commission and the Portuguese Government have argued, that Regulation No 44/2001 is applicable a fortiori in the circumstances of the case at issue in the main proceedings, since the international element is present not only as regards lastminute.com, which is not disputed, but also as regards TUI.

29 Even assuming that a single transaction, such as the one which led the Maletics to book and pay for their package holiday on lastminute.com’s website, may be divided into two separate contractual relationships, first, with the online travel agency lastminute.com and, second, with the travel operator TUI, the second contractual relationship cannot be classified as ‘purely’ domestic since it was inseparably linked to the first contractual relationship which was made through the travel agency situated in another Member State.

30 Furthermore, account must be taken of the objectives set out in recitals 13 and 15 in the preamble to Regulation No 44/2001 concerning the protection of the consumer as ‘the weaker party’ to the contract and the aim to ‘minimise the possibility of concurrent proceedings … to ensure that irreconcilable judgments will not be given in two Member States’.

31 Those objectives preclude a solution which allows the Maletics to pursue parallel proceedings in Bludenz and Vienna, by way of connected actions against two operators involved in the booking and the arrangements for the package holiday at issue in the main proceedings.

Ruling:

The concept of ‘other party to the contract’ laid down in Article 16(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters must be interpreted as meaning, in circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings, that it also covers the contracting partner of the operator with which the consumer concluded that contract and which has its registered office in the Member State in which the consumer is domiciled.


quinta-feira, 28 de novembro de 2013

Press release: ECJ Rules on Effect of Icelandic Legislative Moratorium on Payments in France

by GILLES CUNIBERTI on NOVEMBER 14, 2013

On 24 October 2013, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in LBI hf, formerly Landsbanki Islands hf v Kepler Capital Markets SA and Frédéric Giraux (case C-85/12).

The Court issued the following press release:

The moratorium on payments granted to the bank LBI by the Icelandic authorities produces in France the effects which the Icelandic legislation confers on it

The directive on the reorganisation and winding up of credit institutions does not preclude that the effects of that moratorium retroactively cover interim protective measures in France

The directive on the reorganisation and winding up of credit institutions provides that, in the event of insolvency of a credit institution that has branches in other Member States, the reorganisation measures and the winding-up proceedings are part of a single insolvency procedure in the Member State where the institution has its registered office (known as the home Member State). Therefore, in principle, such measures are subject to a single law on insolvency and they are applied according to the law of the home Member State and are effective in accordance with that law throughout the EU, without any further formalities. For that purpose, States party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, like Iceland, are treated in the same way as Member States of the EU.

In the context of the collapse of the financial system in Iceland following the international financial crisis in 2008, the Icelandic legislature adopted a series of reorganisation measures for various financial institutions established in that country. In particular, a Law of 13 November 2008, first, prohibited proceedings from being brought against financial institutions under a moratorium on payments and, second, ordered the suspension of proceedings pending. By a Law of 15 April 2009, the Icelandic legislature placed financial institutions under a moratorium subject to transitional rules seeking to apply a specific winding-up scheme to their situation, without them being actually wound-up before the expiry of that moratorium.

LBI hf (formerly Landsbanki Islands hf) is an Icelandic credit institution to which a moratorium on payments was granted on 5 December 2008 by the District Court, Reykjavik. Shortly beforehand, on 10 November 2008, LBI was the subject of two attachment orders in France at the request of a creditor residing in that Member State. LBI contested those two attachments orders before the French courts and claimed that the directive made the reorganisation measures adopted in Iceland directly enforceable against its French creditor. In addition, the District Court, Reykjavik declared, on 22 November 2010, the opening of winding-up proceedings against LBI.

Against that background, the Cour de cassation (Court of cassation) (France), which considered that case at last instance, referred to the Court of Justice the question whether the reorganisation or winding-up measures resulting from the transitional rules in the Law of 15 April 2009 are also covered by the directive, the aim of which is the mutual recognition of reorganisation measures and of winding-up proceedings taken by the administrative and judicial authorities. Moreover, the French court seeks to ascertain whether the directive precludes the retroactive application of the effects of a moratorium on interim protective measures adopted in another Member State before it was declared.

In today’s judgment, the Court notes, first, that the administrative and judicial authorities of the home Member State are alone empowered to decide on the implementation of reorganisation measures for a credit institution and on the opening of winding-up proceedings against it. Accordingly, only the measures decided by those authorities are the subject, under the directive, of recognition in the other Member States, with the effects which the law of the home Member State confers on them.

However, the legislation of the home Member State relating to the reorganisation and winding-up of credit institutions can, in principle, take effect in the other Member States only through specific measures taken by the administrative and judicial authorities of that Member State against a credit institution.

In today’s judgment, the Court notes, first, that the administrative and judicial authorities of the home Member State are alone empowered to decide on the implementation of reorganisation measures for a credit institution and on the opening of winding-up proceedings against it. Accordingly, only the measures decided by those authorities are the subject, under the directive, of recognition in the other Member States, with the effects which the law of the home Member State confers on them.

However, the legislation of the home Member State relating to the reorganisation and winding-up of credit institutions can, in principle, take effect in the other Member States only through specific measures taken by the administrative and judicial authorities of that Member State against a credit institution.

As regards the transitional rules of the Law of 15 April 2009, the Court states that, by adopting those rules, the Icelandic legislature did not order, as such, the winding-up of the credit institutions placed under a moratorium, but conferred certain effects linked to winding-up proceedings on the moratoria which were in force on a specific date. Likewise, it follows from those transitional provisions that, unless a judicial decision has granted or extended a moratorium for the benefit of a credit institution before that date, they cannot produce any effects. Accordingly, those rules take effect not directly but through a reorganisation measure granted by a judicial authority for a credit institution. Therefore the moratorium granted to LBI is capable of producing, under the directive, the effects which the Icelandic legislation confers on it in the EU Member States.

As regards the question whether the transitional rules must be able to form the subject of an action in order to take effect in the EU Member States, the Court notes that the directive establishes a system of mutual recognition of national reorganisation and winding-up measures, without seeking to harmonise national legislation on that subject. It points out that the directive does not make the recognition of reorganisation and winding-up measures subject to a condition that it be possible to bring an action against them. Similarly, the law of a Member State may not make that recognition subject to a condition of that type for which its national rules may provide.

Next, as regards the question whether the directive precludes the retroactive application of the effects of a moratorium on interim protective measures adopted in another Member State, the Court observes that the effects of reorganisation measures and winding-up proceedings are, in principle, governed by the law of the home Member State. That general rule does not, however, apply to ‘lawsuits pending’ which are governed by the law of the Member State in which the lawsuit is pending. As regards the scope of that exception, the Court states that the words ‘lawsuits pending’ cover only proceedings on the substance and that individual enforcement actions arising from those lawsuits remain subject to the legislation of the home Member State. In that respect, the Court states that the interim protective measures taken in Franceconstitute individual enforcement actions and, therefore, the effects of the moratorium granted to LBI in Iceland on those interim protective measures are governed by Icelandic law.

Moreover, the fact that those measures were adopted before the moratorium at issue in the main proceedings had been granted to LBI cannot invalidate that conclusion as it is Icelandic law which also governs, under the directive, its temporal effects. The directive does not prevent a reorganisation measure, such as the moratorium, from having retroactive effect.

quarta-feira, 27 de novembro de 2013

Article: Trips and Development


Daniel J. Gervais 

Vanderbilt University - Law School

August 21, 2013

Vanderbilt Public Law Research Paper No. 13-46 

Abstract:
This brief chapter in the (forthcoming) SAGE Handbook of Intellectual Property examines available data and analyses concerning the impact of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on development. The chapter considers distinctions among types of countries and industries, and the role of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Number of Pages in PDF File: 31

Disponível em: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2313836>. Acesso em 16 nov. 2013.

terça-feira, 26 de novembro de 2013

Article: Duty in the Litigation Investment Agreement: The Choice between Tort and Contract Norms When the Deal Breaks Down

Anthony J. Sebok 

Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

W. Bradley Wendel 


Cornell University - School of Law 

November 4, 2013

Vanderbilt Law Review, Forthcoming 

Abstract:

Litigation investment, which is also known as “litigation finance” or “third party litigation finance,” has grown in importance in many common law and civilian legal systems and has come to the United States as well. While many questions remain about both legality and social desirability of litigation finance, this paper starts with the assumption that the practice will become widespread in the US and explores the obligations of the parties to the litigation finance contract.

The first part of the article uses an example to illustrate the risks imposed by one of the other party on the other which should inform the formation and enforcement of the litigation investment contract. The risks are: (1) Information Asymmetry; (2) Shirking; (3) Control; and (4) Opportunities Forgone. As we explain in the article, it is not obvious that careful contract drafting can do anything other than minimize these risks. Since their elimination is impossible (or at least prohibitively costly), the question the article turns to is how should disputes over the realization of any of these risks be handled by the courts?

The article canvasses a range of legal responses, including tort, contract, and regulation, and focuses on the tort and contract regimes as resources for legal doctrine to provide guidance to lawyers and judges. We review the history of tort liability in pure economic loss cases involving the performance of contracts, and focus in first and third party insurance “bad faith” doctrines as the most promising analog. We conclude that, despite some superficial similarities, the relationship between a claim owner and an investor in a legal claim are sufficiently different from that of an insurer and an insured such that tort law should not be followed in the case of litigation finance disputes.

Finally, we review the possibility of using contract law to resolve disputes between funders and claim owners. The key challenge to anyone who defends the adequacy of contract law is to properly define the nature of the contract, since different kinds of contracts yield different obligations and different remedies. We argue that litigation investment contracts are ‘relational contracts’ since they possess certain features that are a hallmark of this legal family, such as a concern to allow for the renegotiation of terms in order preserve the contract as an ongoing relationship. With this in mind, we conclude by drawing upon the relational contract literature to sketch out broad contract law principles to apply to disputes over the performance of litigation investment contracts and the remedies that courts should order in the event that a contract breach is found.


Number of Pages in PDF File: 58

Disponível em: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2344914>. Acesso em 16 nov. 2013.


segunda-feira, 25 de novembro de 2013

Blog "Beyond the Hague" - Direito Penal Internacional

Estou acrescentando Beyond the Hague à lista de blogs para pesquisa.

Os posts nele publicados tratam de Direito penal Internacional.

Sobre si, dizem os autores:

"Beyond The Hague is written by a team of lawyers and researchers who were previously working in The Hague but are now off living and working in various other corners of the international justice field. All views expressed here are, of course, only those of the individual author."

Disponível em: <http://beyondthehague.com/>. Acesso em 14 nov. 2013.

sexta-feira, 22 de novembro de 2013

Blog post: From Justice Delayed to Justice Denied: Katyń in Strasbourg (From Justice in Conflict)

Posted on October 31, 2013, by Mark Kersten


In April 1940, the Soviet secret police initiated a secret massacre of some 20,000 Polish officials and officers. The struggle to establish the truth of what happened in the Katyń forests came to dominate much of contemporary Polish political life and played a leading role in the struggle to wrench the country free from the shackles of communism. JiC is thrilled to welcome Maria Radziejowska for this  guest-post on the recent ruling at the European Court of Human Rights on whether Russia has sufficiently investigated the Katyń massacre. Maria is currently working for the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw where she conducts research and analysis focusing on international security and justice issues. She also blogs at Beyond the Hague

Katyn monument in Jersey City (Photo Mark Grabowski)
The Katyń massacre took place between April and May 1940 when 20,000 thousand Polish officers and officials were executed by NKVD, the Soviet special police. After decades of denial, Russia publicly acknowledged Soviet responsibility for the massacre in 1990. But the entire truth about what happened in the forests of Katyń has remained out of reach. Many believe Russia has not done enough in coming clean about the massacre.

Last week, the Grand Chamber of the ECHR delivered its final decision in Janowiec et al. v. Russia (other comment here). The case before the ECHR concerned the quality of investigations conducted by Russian authorities into the Katyń massacre. These started in 1990 and ceased in 2004, following the decision of the Russian authorities to re-classify as “top-secret” 36 volumes of files and to discontinue the investigation. The applicants before the Court argued that Russian authorities breached their rights by failing to carry out an effective investigation into the death of their relatives and displayed a dismissive attitude towards the applicants’ requests for information about their relatives’ fate.

The final outcome of the case has turned out to be a bitter disappointment for the victims’ families and the human rights community, especially in light of the first instance decision partly granting the applicants’ claim pertaining to the way they were treated by Russian authorities. Many observers reacted to the Court’s decision with disappointment. So too did the dissenting judges who proclaimed that this decision turned a “long history of justice delayed into a permanent case of justice denied.”
The Grand Chamber confirmed that the Court has no temporal authority to examine the efficiency of the investigations carried out by the Russian authorities into the massacre. The majority considered that in certain circumstances, a state-party may be obliged under the Convention to investigate unlawful or suspicious deaths, even if such occurred before the state in question was bound by the Convention (Šilih v. Slovenia which I recently discussed in more detail here). However, not without limits. The Grand Chamber clarified that the time lapse between the crime and the entry into force of the Convention for the obliged state must not exceed ten years (!). Moreover, the major part of the investigation must be carried out after the Convention became binding for the state (paras 140-151). To this end the applicants pointed out that the Court should have given due consideration to the “Ukrainian list” pertaining to 3,435 victims, discovered and conveyed to the Russian investigation authorities in 2004, or to the very decision to classify parts of the files (para. 113, statement by victims’ representative, Ireneusz C. Kamiński in Polish). Nevertheless, the majority upheld the previous finding that the most crucial part of the investigations into the Katyń massacre took place before Russia ratified the Convention in 1998 (para. 159).


To the dismay of those who had hoped to invoke the “humanitarian clause” to seek justice for grave human rights breaches of the past, the verdict is clear. Even when the crime in question is so grave that it negates the very foundations of the Convention, the Court is not competent to examine state parties’ obligation to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity that predated the adoption of the Convention (4 November 1950) (para. 151). The multitude of arguments one could make for or against this finding is displayed in the majority judgment, the dissenting opinions as well as in the third party submissions (i.e. Open Society Justice Initiative or Amnesty International). The arguments raised elaborate on the content and interpretation of the non-retroactivity of treaties, the non-applicability of statute of limitations to war crimes, the values and the intended purpose of the Convention, the customary law status of the crimes in question. All that being said, it seems that the Court has chosen to definitively close the door to victims of gross human rights violations that occurred prior to the Convention.

The brutally ironic result is that following the applicants’ decision to appeal, the Grand Chamber negated the first instance finding that the manner in which the applicant’s enquiries were dealt with by the Russian authorities “has attained the minimum level of severity to be considered inhuman treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention”. In view of the Grand Chamber this would be justified only if the fate of the applicants’ relatives was uncertain. However, their death was publicly acknowledged in 1990 and has become an established historical fact by 1998 (para. 186).

To assess the level of one’s suffering in order to see whether it falls under certain legal qualification, is surely a difficult task. The same holds for assessing whether some procedural steps or developments constitute a “major part of an investigation” or not. On the other hand, it is important to point to the historical conditions to which the Grand Chamber should have given greater attention in its considerations. Indeed, when Russia ratified the Convention in 1998, the applicants knew that their relatives, who had been missing for 58 years, were killed by the NKVD pursuant to Stalin’s order. However, the applicants’ first serious attempts to gain more detailed information about their fate were made after years of living a politically orchestrated lie, years of knowing that any efforts to establish the truth would be refused but very likely punished. After the investigations were instigated in 1990 by the Soviet and then Russian authorities, corpses were excavated in Kharkov, Mednoye (Tver), Katyń. Evidence was collected and some witnesses were interviewed. The applicants were finally given an opportunity to learn what actually had happened to their grandfathers, fathers, brothers or husbands. Yet, they were confronted with an uncooperative attitude, lack of transparency, classified decisions, confusing legal qualifications, misinformation and refusals to recognize the applicants as injured parties.
Katyn Memorial (Photo: Mike Church)
Katyń plays a significant role not only for the relatives of the victims but also more generally in Poland’s contemporary historical identity. It remains an unsettled part of the past, although, one may now speak about and discuss it freely. Not all of the relatives of the victims demand investigations, but continuous lack of open reckoning persists. Katyń also continues to haunt the rather chilly Polish – Russian relations. Could this judgement be an opportunity to warm them up?
According to the Russian authorities, the investigations conducted into the Katyń massacre were in fact conducted “in breach of the [Russian] criminal procedure requirement, for political reasons, as a goodwill gesture to the Polish authorities” (para. 109). So why cease them? This is the question that Poles – and not just the applicants in the case –ask themselves. Given that states bear the primary responsibility for investigating and prosecuting war crimes; given the non-applicability of statute of limitations to war crimes; given, that at this juncture the main purpose of the proceedings in question would be simply to establish the truth and to legally rehabilitate victims of the massacre; given all of this, why not continue this “goodwill gesture”? In a way, this judgement burns the bridge between the past and present, thus allowing the state not to confront its less glorious part of the Stalinist past. However, the verdict does not actually bar the Russian authorities from taking further steps, even if not based on the obligation anchored by the Convention.
Radek Sikorski, the Polish minister of Foreign Affairs has declared (here in Polish) that regardless of the verdict Poland will continue to request the Russian authorities to conduct legal rehabilitation of victims of the Katyń massacre and to handover the relevant investigation files. Perhaps the case is lost before the Court, but it has not yet been dropped.


Disponível em: <http://justiceinconflict.org/2013/10/31/from-justice-delayed-to-justice-denied-katyn-in-strasbourg/>. Acesso em 14 nov. 2013.

quarta-feira, 20 de novembro de 2013

Article: Nonsectarian Welfare Statements


Cass R. Sunstein
Harvard Law School

August 28, 2013

Regulation & Governance, Forthcoming 

Abstract:
How can we measure whether national institutions in general, and regulatory institutions in particular, are dysfunctional? A central question is whether they are helping a nation’s citizens to live good lives. A full answer to that question would require a great deal of philosophical work, but it should be possible to achieve an incompletely theorized agreement on a kind of nonsectarian welfarism, emphasizing the importance of five variables: subjective well-being, longevity, health, educational attainment, and per capita income. In principle, it would be valuable to identify the effects of new initiatives (including regulations) on all of these variables. In practice, it is not feasible to do so; assessments of subjective well-being present particular challenges. In their ideal form, Regulatory Impact Statements should be seen as Nonsectarian Welfare Statements, seeking to identify the consequences of regulatory initiatives for various components of welfare. So understood, they provide reasonable measures of regulatory success or failure, and hence a plausible test of dysfunction. There is a pressing need for improved evaluations, including both randomized controlled trials and ex post assessments.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 12

Keywords: subjective well-being, welfarism, cost-benefit analysis, randomized controlled trials, retrospective analysis

Disponível em: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2317909>. Acesso em 13 nov. 2013.

segunda-feira, 18 de novembro de 2013

Article: The Administrative State: Law, Democracy, and Knowledge


Adrian Vermeule
Harvard Law School

2013

Oxford Handbook of the United States Constitution, 2013, Forthcoming 

Abstract:
This is a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the United States Constitution. I provide and compare three organizing frameworks for the administrative state. The first examines its constitutionality, the second its democratic credentials, the third its epistemic and technocratic capacities. After describing each, I examine their interaction, and suggest that the administrative state is the setting for an endlessly shifting series of alliances between and among constitutionalists, democrats and technocrats.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 26

Disponível em: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2329818>. Acesso em 13 nov. 2013.

sábado, 16 de novembro de 2013

Novo Conselho da ASADIP

A Associação Americana de Direito Internacional Privado elegeu no dia 2 de novembro de 2013 o seu Conselho para o triênio 2014-2016.

Fazem parte dele os brasileiros Lauro Gama Jr (VicePresidente de Relações Internacionais) e Augusto Jagger (Vogal).

Boa sorte à entidade nessa nova etapa!

Mais informações no site da ASADIP: http://www.asadip.org/asadip-con-nuevas-autoridades-2013-2016/

sexta-feira, 15 de novembro de 2013

Aquisição de terras por estrangeiro vive impasse (do Consultor Jurídico)

Por Nathália de Oliveira Dias Soares e Matheus de Moura Doria Grande

A aquisição e arrendamento de imóvel rural por estrangeiro e empresas brasileiras controladas por estrangeiro no Brasil é tema que tem gerado grande discussão entre os operadores do direito e investidores estrangeiros em decorrência das diferentes interpretações feitas pela Advocacia Geral da União acerca da Lei Federal 5.709/1971 e do Decreto 74.965/1974, as quais impõem restrições e limitações à aquisição de imóveis rurais.

A publicação do último Parecer da AGU, em 23 de outubro de 2010, que ratificou as disposições restritivas da lei e do decreto mencionado, quase que inviabilizou os investimentos estrangeiros em imóveis rurais e em empresas brasileiras proprietárias de imóveis rurais.

No entanto, recentes notícias veiculadas pela mídia acerca da flexibilização do Parecer da AGU trouxeram mais uma vez à tona novas dúvidas e incertezas acerca das restrições e limitações impostas à aquisição e arrendamento de imóveis rurais, conforme refletimos no presente artigo.

Por força da interpretação contida no Parecer, as restrições impostas aos estrangeiros e às empresas brasileiras controladas por estrangeiros ficaram mais rígidas, vinculando toda a administração pública, inclusive e diretamente os Cartórios de Registro de Imóveis e os Tabelionatos de Notas, os quais ficam impedidos de registrar e lavrar escritura de aquisição e arrendamento de imóveis rurais, sob pena de nulidade dos atos.

Dentre as implicações trazidas pelo Parecer, a principal foi a interpretação de que as empresas brasileiras controladas por estrangeiros devem ser tratadas, para fins de aquisição e arrendamento de imóvel rural, como empresas estrangeiras propriamente ditas e, desse modo, sujeitas a todas a limitações e restrições impostas pela Lei Federal 5.709/1971 e pelo Decreto 74.965/1974.

Em síntese, empresas estrangeiras e empresas brasileiras controladas por estrangeiros apenas podem adquirir e arrendar imóveis rurais com uma área inferior ao equivalente a 100 Módulos de Exploração Indefinida (MEIs — que pode variar entre 5 a 100 hectares dependendo da região e atividade explorada no imóvel), desde que obtidas autorizações do Ministério da Agricultura, Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agrária, dentre outros. Na prática, os procedimentos para obtenção dessas autorizações ainda não foram determinados, e, portanto, não há como precisar como solicitar as autorizações e tão pouco o prazo para obtenção das mesmas.

A aquisição e arrendamento de imóveis rurais com área superior ao equivalente a 100 MEIs é ainda mais complicada e morosa, pois, além de estar sujeita às autorizações do Ministério da Agricultura, Incra etc., fica sujeita à aprovação do Congresso Nacional.

A aplicação das restrições impostas em decorrência da interpretação do Parecer também abrange as aquisições e arrendamento de imóveis rurais de modo indireto, incluindo aquelas resultantes de incorporação, fusão e aquisição de empresa brasileira proprietária de imóvel rural, em que ocorra a alteração do controle acionário para pessoa física ou jurídica estrangeira.

Não obstante, em 12 de setembro de 2012, o Tribunal de Justiça do Estado de São Paulo publicou uma decisão prolatada no Mandado de Segurança 0058947-33.2012.8.26.0000, autorizando a averbação na matrícula do imóvel dos atos societários de incorporação de uma empresa (hipótese de aquisição indireta de imóvel), proprietária de imóveis rurais, por uma companhia brasileira controlada por capital estrangeiro. O mandado de segurança foi impetrado contra o Corregedor Geral de Justiça do Estado de São Paulo que negou a averbação da incorporação societária da empresa impetrante (cuja incorporação foi devidamente realizada antes da vinculação do Parecer, sendo, desta forma, um ato jurídico perfeito que não afrontou a interpretação da lei à sua época). No mais, ressalte-se tratar-se de uma decisão inter partes, vale dizer, que gera efeitos apenas para a autora da ação.

Ainda, em 11 de dezembro de 2012, a Corregedoria Geral da Justiça de São Paulo reviu o posicionamento contido no Parecer, passando a entender que o artigo 1º, parágrafo 1º, da Lei 5.709/1971 não foi recepcionado pela Constituição Brasileira, de modo que as limitações impostas pela lei somente diriam respeito às pessoas físicas e jurídicas estrangeiras e não às empresas brasileiras controladas por estrangeiro.

Nesse sentido, referida decisão dispensou os Cartórios de Registro de Imóveis e os Tabelionatos de Notas do Estado de São Paulo (não incluindo os demais estados do Brasil) de observarem as restrições e as determinações impostas pela Lei 5.709/1971 e pelo Decreto 74.965/1974, afastando a aplicação da interpretação contida no Parecer.

Embora esta recente decisão dispense os Cartórios de Registro de Imóveis e os Tabelionatos de Notas do Estado de São Paulo de observarem as restrições impostas às empresas brasileiras controladas por estrangeiros, a Corregedoria Geral da Justiça de São Paulo não desvinculou os demais órgãos relacionados à questão de aquisição de imóveis rurais, tais como o Ministério da Agricultura, o Incra e o Congresso Nacional. Desta feita, é indiscutível o progresso que referida decisão da Corregedoria trouxe para o assunto, porém ainda não é suficiente para viabilizar a segurança jurídica nas aquisições/arrendamento de imóveis rurais por empresas com controle estrangeiro.

Assim, as recentes decisões abrem um precedente positivo para solução da quase que impossibilidade de investimento estrangeiro em imóveis rurais no Brasil, demonstrando a existência de uma crescente corrente no Judiciário e na doutrina que visa flexibilizar ditas restrições e limitações. Contudo, essas decisões ainda não se apresentam como uma solução definitiva e eficaz ao tema, pois desvincula das obrigações apenas os Registros de Imóveis e Tabelionatos de Notas do Estado de São Paulo.

Por fim, vale ainda pontuar que alguns projetos de leis sobre esse assunto estão em pauta e sob análise do Congresso Nacional, não sendo possível prever qual será o efetivo texto da lei que será aprovado, uma vez que existem projetos divergentes sobre o assunto.

Embora referidos projetos de leis já estejam sob análise e possam melhor definir o tema, seja por uma maior restrição à aquisição de imóveis rurais ou uma maior flexibilização, ainda não é possível mensurar um prazo para a solução do impasse, o que acaba gerando grande insegurança jurídica para empresas com controle estrangeiro que visam investir no país.

Disponível em: <http://www.conjur.com.br/2013-mar-22/nathalia-soares-aquisicao-terras-estrangeiro-vive-situacao-impasse>. Acesso em 11 nov. 2013.

quinta-feira, 14 de novembro de 2013

Extradição e art. 89 do Estatuto do Estrangeiro

Informativo STF n. 723

A 2ª Turma resolveu questão de ordem em extradição, para reconhecer que o extraditando poderá ser entregue imediatamente ao país requerente, sob pena de expedição de alvará de soltura. Na espécie, em 22.7.2011, o estrangeiro fora preso por determinação desta Corte, para fins de extradição, cuja decisão transitara em julgado em 6.12.2012. Porém, até a presente data, sua extradição não fora efetivada. Informações solicitadas noticiaram que a manutenção da custódia decorrera de condenação, em 9.9.2013, pela prática, no território brasileiro, do delito de falsidade ideológica. Apenado a um ano de reclusão e ao pagamento de 10 dias-multa, em regime inicial aberto, a reprimenda fora posteriormente substituída por restritiva de direito. A Turma apontou que, conquanto não houvesse transitado em julgado a condenação pelo crime praticado no Brasil, não existiria outro motivo para a segregação cautelar do extraditando. Ressaltou, ainda, o que disposto no art. 89 da Lei 6.815/80 (“Quando o extraditando estiver sendo processado, ou tiver sido condenado, no Brasil, por crime punível com pena privativa de liberdade, a extradição será executada somente depois da conclusão do processo ou do cumprimento da pena, ressalvado, entretanto, o disposto no artigo 67”). Aduziu que, nos termos da Lei 6.815/80, caberia ao Presidente da República avaliar a conveniência e a oportunidade da entrega do estrangeiro antes da conclusão da ação ou do cumprimento da pena. Ressaltou, ademais, a peculiaridade do caso e a iminência da extinção da pena do extraditando. Por fim, julgou prejudicado pedido de transferência para outra superintendência da polícia federal.
Ext. 1232 QO/Governo da Espanha, rel. Min. Gilmar Mendes, 8.10.2013. (Ext-1232).

Ementa:
Questão de ordem. 2. Extradição parcialmente deferida. Trânsito em julgado. 3. Estrangeiro condenado pela Justiça brasileira por falsidade ideológica (art. 299, caput, do CP) à pena de 1 ano, com detração de 10 meses e 29 dias. Regime aberto. Substituição da pena privativa de liberdade por 1 pena restritiva de direito. 4. Reprimenda na iminência de ser extinta (em 10 de outubro de 2013). Art. 67 da Lei 6.815/80. 5. Questão de ordem resolvida no sentido de reconhecer que o extraditando poderá ser entregue imediatamente, sob pena de expedição de alvará de soltura.

(Ext 1232 QO, Relator(a):  Min. GILMAR MENDES, Segunda Turma, julgado em 08/10/2013, ACÓRDÃO ELETRÔNICO DJe-214 DIVULG 28-10-2013 PUBLIC 29-10-2013)

quarta-feira, 13 de novembro de 2013

Article: International Law and Courts: The Promise of Historical Institutional Analysis

Karen J. Alter 

Northwestern University - Department of Political Science; University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law - iCourts Center of Excellence 
October 10, 2013

Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism, Orfeo Fioretos, Tulia G. Falleti, and Adam Sheingate, eds., Oxford University Press (Forthcoming)
iCourts Working Paper Series, No. 3, 2013 

Abstract:      
This paper examines what the tools of historical institutional analysis can bring to the study of international courts. Rather than seeing the creation of an international court as a new institutional moment, I argue that the proliferation and fundamental reorientation of international courts over time is best understood as institutional evolution across three critical junctures: the disappointing Hague Peace conference era, the trauma of WWII, and the end of the Cold War. New-style international courts reflect lessons learned that combine with a desire to make state legal commitments more meaningful and international legal instruments more effective. To understand the varied influence of established ICs, one should look at international law and international courts as opportunity structures that societal actors activate. The paper then considers whether courts, as legal institutions, are a distinct type of institution and whether international courts are distinct types of courts. I argue that international courts draw on the authority of the rule of law yet per force operate in a polycentric context, with the competing authority and pull of domestic law and democratic choice serving as counterweights that fuel and limit appeals to international courts and that constrain international court decision-making and influence. Within this context, historical institutional approaches are likely to significantly contribute: 1) in helping us understand the differing decisions of political actors to invoke litigation threats and litigation; 2) in helping us understand the choices of international judges and the varying impact of international legal rulings; 3) in helping us understand how national legal doctrine vis-à-vis international law evolves over time.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 31

Disponível em: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2341779>. Acesso em 9 nov. 2013.

segunda-feira, 11 de novembro de 2013

Article: A U.S. Perspective on Forum Shopping, Ethical Obligations, and International Commercial Arbitration

Aaron D. Simowitz 

New York University (NYU) - School of Law
October 2013

In: Forum Shopping in the International Commercial Arbitration Context, pp. 23-52, (Franco Ferrari, ed., 2013)
NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 13-55 

Abstract:      
Every law student takes a course on legal ethics. They discuss the basics of attorneys’ ethical obligations, such as the duties of zeal, diligence, and competence. They apply these duties to certain fundamentals, like the obligation to perform adequate legal research or not to file frivolous claims. But neither law students nor scholars have considered how these ethical requirements bear on one of the most common activities in modern transactional or litigation practice: picking an advantageous forum. In short, what is an attorney’s duty to forum shop?

Forum shopping, broadly defined, is the selection or attempt to select a tribunal that will be of some benefit to one or both parties. Forum shopping can be bilateral, when it is commonly called “forum selection” — for example, choice of court clauses or arbitration agreements. Or, forum shopping can be unilateral — the filing of a complaint in a favorable forum, a motion for transfer or removal, or a motion to dismiss on the ground of forum non conveniens. Viewed through this wide lens, forum shopping is everywhere. Indeed, it crops up in some surprising ways and places. Given forum shopping’s ubiquity, we would expect courts to apply attorneys’ ethical obligation to forum shopping in much the same way they do in other contexts — such as the duties to perform adequate legal research or to not file frivolous claims. And yet, this is not the case.

Ethical obligations to forum shop are under- and over-enforced in strange ways. In the simplest formulation, attorneys may do whatever is advantageous for the client that is not frivolous — this principle embodies the canon of zeal and the restriction to file only meritorious claims and contentions. Attorneys must do whatever is good for the client, non-frivolous and is reasonable or typical for lawyers in the field. However, when courts consider what forum shopping is required, they have been reluctant to demand that attorneys provide legal advice about alternative forums, even if such a duty would normally exist. When courts consider what forum shopping is permitted, they have similarly veered away from these basic principles. This article seeks to explain the variance and argues that attorneys have, among their other ethical obligations, a duty to forum shop.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 32

Keywords: forum shopping, arbitration, civil procedure, ethics, professional responsibility, international litigation, international arbitration

Disponível em: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2321229>. Acesso em 9 nov. 2013.

quarta-feira, 6 de novembro de 2013

Questões sobre reconhecimento de Estado, reconhecimento de governo, microestados e organizações internacionais

  1. O reconhecimento de Estado tem natureza declaratória ou constitutiva?
  2. Diferencie reconhecimento de Estado expresso e reconhecimento de Estado tácito.
  3. Diferencie reconhecimento de Estado e reconhecimento de governo.
  4. Em que circunstâncias surge a questão do reconhecimento de governo?
  5. Em que consiste a doutrina Tobar?
  6. Em que consiste a doutrina Estrada?
  7. Quais requisitos devem ser observados para que ocorra o reconhecimento de Estado?
  8. A Santa Sé apresenta os requisitos para ser reconhecida como Estado?
  9. Quais requisitos devem ser observados para que ocorra o reconhecimento de governo?
  10. O Estado da Palestina apresenta os requisitos para ser reconhecido como Estado?
  11. Quais as características dos microestados?
  12. O que é uma organização internacional?
  13. A hidroelétrica de Itaipu é uma organização internacional?
  14. Quais são os órgãos indispensáveis à estrutura de uma organização internacional?
  15. Em uma organização internacional, um Estado-Membro pode ser obrigado por uma decisão que não obteve o seu voto favorável?
  16. Considerando o direito das organizações internacionais, em que consiste um acordo de sede?
  17. Uma organização internacional pode estabelecer sua sede no território de um Estado que dela não seja membro?
  18. Organizações internacionais gozam de imunidade em relação à jurisdição estatal?
  19. Quais os requisitos para a admissão de um Estado em uma organização internacional?
  20. Que tipo de punições uma organização internacional pode aplicar a um Estado-Membro que descumpra as obrigações perante ela assumidas?
  21. Como pode ocorrer a retirada de um Estado-Membro de uma organização internacional?
  22. Explique a classificação das organizações internacionais quanto ao seu alcance e quanto à sua finalidade.

segunda-feira, 4 de novembro de 2013

Diversificação e expansão do direito internacional: riscos ou dificuldades?

A Revista do Programa de Mestrado e Doutorado da Universidade de Santa Cruz do Sul publicou um artigo de minha autoria sobre as conclusões do grupo de estudos da Comissão de Direito Internacional das Nações Unidas sobre a fragmentação do Direito Internacional. Esta é a primeira versão do trabalho a ver a luz, agradecerei críticas, comentários e sugestões.

Revista do Direito, n. 40, agosto/outubro 2013

Imagem para capa da revista

Diversificação e expansão do Direito Internacional: riscos ou dificuldades?

Diversification and Expansion of International Law: risks or difficulties?

Rodrigo Bastos Raposo[1]

Sumário: 1 Introdução. 2 Histórico dos trabalhos do Grupo de Estudos. 3 Resultados dos trabalhos do Grupo de Estudos. 3.1 Considerações Gerais. 3.2 Lex specialis derogare lege generali. 3.3 Regimes especiais (self contained regimes). 3.4 Artigo 31(3)(c) da Convenção de Viena sobre Direito dos Tratados (CVDT). 3.5 Conflitos entre normas sucessivas. 3.6 Hierarquia no direito internacional. 4 Repercussão dos trabalhos do Grupo de Estudos. 5 Considerações Finais. Referências.

RESUMO

Entre 2000 e 2006 a Comissão de Direito Internacional das Nações Unidas empreendeu um estudo acerca do fenômeno da fragmentação do direito internacional. O estudo foi marcado a princípio por preocupações essencialmente negativas acerca do fenômeno, que, se aprofundando a partir do final da segunda guerra mundial, estaria a modificar e desnaturar a ordem jurídica internacional, podendo mesmo desintegrá-la em múltiplos subsistemas desconectados. No entanto, ao longo do desenvolvimento das discussões sobre o assunto, emergiu a percepção de que o fenômeno da fragmentação era também um sinal de vitalidade e crescimento do direito internacional e que, conquanto trouxesse desafios à manutenção da coerência e sistematicidade do mesmo, era essencialmente um fenômeno positivo de expansão do império do direito e um fruto da busca por maior eficácia do sistema por seus próprios atores.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE

Fragmentação do direito internacional. Expansão do direito internacional. Diversificação do direito internacional.
ABSTRACT

Between 2000 and 2006 the International Law Commission undertake a study about the phenomenon of the fragmentation of international law. In the beginning, the study presented a negative perception of the phenomenon, which, having deepened since the end of World War II, would be modifying and changing the nature of the international legal order, ensuing even the risk of its disintegration in a multitude of disconnected subsystems. Although, in the course of the discussions on the subject, the perception of fragmentation as a sign of vitality and growing of international law has arisen and, as long as it had brought challenges in keeping the coherent and systemic character of international law, it was, at the same time, an essentially positive phenomenon of rule of law expansion and a consequence of the continuous search, by international actors, for a more efficient international juridical system.

KEY-WORDS
Fragmentation of International Law. Expansion of International Law. Diversification of International Law.



[1] Doutorando em Direito (UERJ). Mestre em Direito (UFSC). Bacharel em Direito (UFMA). Advogado (OAB/MA 5.389). Professor de Direito Internacional (IBMEC/RJ; UNDB/MA). Endereço eletrônico: rodrigobastosraposo@hotmail.com