Launched in October of last year as a very positive initiative by the Federal Revenue Service of Brazil (RFB) to guide taxpayers, in addition to avoiding default and potential litigation, the draft ordinance establishing a federal program to encourage tax compliance, Pro-Compliance, has some very questionable points that we shall review in this article.

In January, the state government of São Paulo enacted Law No. 16,933/2019, which regulates the institutes of contract extension, early extension, and rebidding in the State of São Paulo. This law is similar to the rules set forth in Law No. 13,448/2017, which governs the same institutes in the federal public administration sphere.

Law No. 13,800/2019, enacted in January, converted into law, with various modifications, Presidential Decree No. 851/18, published shortly after the fire at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. The purpose was to regulate endowments and other heritage or philanthropic funds. Among the changes promoted are simplification of the governance of the endowment funds and the expansion of the causes to be supported by them, with the express inclusion of human rights, public safety, and other causes of public interest.

Federal Decree No. 9,571/2018 has been drawing the attention of companies by assuming effective legal rules on liability for the chain of production. The decree stipulates the guidelines on human rights to be adopted by Brazilian and multinational companies of all sizes, in the context of their whole operation.

With the adequacy season to the Brazilian Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 13,709/2018), aka LGPD, opened and reinforced by the creation of the National Data Protection Authority (or ANPD, Presidential Decree No. 869/2018), managers and organizations are being bombarded with risk analysis, recommendations, market solutions, and a multitude of information and cross-cutting discussions that, although relevant, may be of little use or even disrupt them, if they do not have the right mindset and travel plan.

The system of precedents established by the Brazilian Procedure Code published in 2015 (CPC/2015) is based on the premise that trials of given instruments will have a binding effect on the Judiciary and that, solely for this reason, decisions that do not follow the understanding of such precedents will be challenged by a special lawsuit named “Reclamação”. Decisions with binding effects resulting from: i) trials held by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in concentrated control of constitutionality; ii) stare decisis (“súmula vinculante”) issued by STF (here, also binding on the Administration, not just for the Judiciary); iii) trials in incidents for assumption of jurisdiction or resolution of repetitive claims; and iv) trials of extraordinary or special repetitive appeals by the STF or the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), respectively.