The judgment of the special appeal was published this Monday (10/2) in which the 4th Panel of the Superior Court of Justice defined that debts incurred by a rural producer before his registration with the Board of Trade can be included in the judicial recovery.

The law that regulates judicial reorganization (Law 11.101/05) establishes that one of the requirements for claiming reorganization is that the plaintiff "regularly carries out his activities for more than two years" (Article 48) and "instructs his request with the certificate of regularity of the debtor in the Public Registry of Companies" (article 51).

In the opinion of most of the justices of the STJ, the time of activity of rural producers cannot be limited to registration with the Board of Trade. This is because the Civil Code establishes that the registration of rural entrepreneurs and rural business companies is optional.

Thus, for the author of the winning vote, Minister Raul Araújo, rural producers can regularly carry out their activities before registration, thus fulfilling the requirement of the Recovery and Bankruptcy Law.

"As the rural entrepreneur, whose registration is optional, is always in good standing, even before registration, being entitled to differentiated, simplified and favored treatment in terms of registration and the resulting effects, it follows that, after the registration of the producer rural entrepreneur, the law does not distinguish the legal regime applicable to obligations before or after the registration of the rural entrepreneur who comes to request judicial recovery. .

The specific case analyzed was that of the company JPupin Agropecuária, which was represented, among others, by lawyers Marcus Vinicius Furtado Côelho, Anna Maria Trindade dos Reis and Camila Somadossi. The company, which has debt in excess of R$ 1 billion, filed for judicial reorganization in 2017. For banks, debts prior to registration could not be included in the reorganization. 

On 1/30, ConJur announced an injunction that suspended, until the matter (temporary application of the institute to rural producers) was defined, the constriction on assets of a rural producer who was claiming judicial recovery.

Source: Tadeu Rover via Conjur.