Sibele de Oliveira Pimenta
Lawyer at Marcos Martins Advogados
The 5th Panel of the 9th Chamber of the Regional Labor Court of the 15th Region granted the interlocutory appeal filed by a company in the interior of São Paulo that is undergoing judicial reorganization, which sought reconsideration of the order to seize its fleet of trucks, suspending the enforcement actions in order to grant the issuance of a certificate to qualify the credits in the reorganization court.
The interlocutory appeal was filed against a decision handed down by one of the labor courts in Araraquara, which seized 56 trucks and 2 properties belonging to the Defendant Company as a result of a court agreement that was not complied with during the COVID-19 pandemic. In its appeal, the company claimed that the lower court had not only disregarded the “stay period” provided for in article 52, III, of Law 11.101/2005, but had also invaded the jurisdiction of the State Court by continuing with the constrictive measures against the company.
The Company also explained in its appeal that in addition to its situation as a company in judicial reorganization, in which, by legal determination, the debtor’s assets must remain unchanged, and any sale or encumbrance of the company’s assets is prohibited, that the agreement entered into was breached due to financial difficulties in recent years, aggravated after the outbreak of the pandemic resulting from COVID-19 and that the seizure of its entire fleet, in addition to being excessive, prevents the resumption of the company’s activities and its effective recovery.
When analyzing the employer’s appeal, the Reporting Judge confirmed that the jurisdiction to decide on the assets of the company under judicial reorganization lies with the reorganization court, dismissing the jurisdiction of the Labor Court to proceed with the ongoing execution against the company, fully releasing the attachment on the assets owned by the employer that had its request for judicial reorganization granted.
The company was represented by Marcos Martins, a specialist in corporate labor law.
