After starting up in Brazil or attempting to develop their business activities in this country, any Nordic companies face a lot of bureaucracy when there is a conflict or dispute emerging from their initial project. This may arise from a commercial relationship with a business partner, a client or even a supplier. Another reason may also be regional or even cultural differences with regard to the project or business development itself.
Normally, all conflicts and lawsuits should be subject to an internal round of negotiation between the parties involved. However, it may also be necessary sometimes to appoint a third neutral mediator to intervene by helping parties reach a commercial consensus again, thus preserving their relationship in the long run and also furthering common projects.
Should this not work, parties may have to address their dispute in the state courts, which are totally overloaded in Brazil. Despite the substantial allocation of state budgets for public justice, an individual or company should count on at least a couple of years in order to obtain a concrete and final court decision. This is unfortunately due to the fact that the administration of a publicly-held procedure before state courts is dependent on a “public” judge, who as a civil servant is also obliged to run thousands of other pending cases involving endless bureaucracy.
To avoid going to the public courts, Nordic investors should obtain proper advice from their legal advisors to choose the correct arbitration clause, stating the arbitration institution, language, applicable law and venue. All these issues play a major role not only in the discovery phase of the procedure but also in the execution of the arbitration award, should the defeated party not comply with the award. Swedcham, together with 15 other bilateral Chambers of Commerce, is ready to provide Nordic investors and its members with both mediation and arbitration procedures, in order to help them to improve their local business activities. More information is available on the European Court of Arbitration (CAE) homepage from the European Chamber of Commerce based in São Paulo (Eurocâmaras) www.euroarbitragem.com.br. We hope you enjoy reading it and get back to us if you have any doubts or questions.
Last but not least, CAE-Eurocâmaras entered a cooperation agreement in the course of its international and multicultural activities with EuroChile in Santiago last September and is now organizing an international event with the German Chamber of Commerce and DIS (German Institute for Arbitration) in November together with Swedcham under the Spanish Chairmanship of the Eurocâmaras. We hope to see you there. Thanks!
Renato Pacheco e Silva Bacellar Neto is partner at Pacheco Neto Sanden Teisseire Law Firm.
