Portuguese Law

In June 2013, the Court of Justice of the EU dealt with the compatibility of Portuguese corporate groups law, in particular the liability of the parent company, with EU law. The Court elaborated on what is believed to be an inaccurate account of Portuguese law; ignored the domestic scholarly debate on the subject matter; and consequently disregarded the indispensable coherence of the regulation of groups of companies in its entirety.

Keywords: groups of companies; freedom of establishment; liability of parent company.

Universidade do Minho
29- 30/9/2016    Auditório Nobre da Escola de Direito

Jornadas Internacionais no âmbito da Comemoração dos 50 Anos do Código Civil Português

https://www.direito.uminho.pt/pt/_layouts/15/UMinho.PortaisUOEI.UI/Pages/EventsDetail.aspx?id=49043

"The insurance contract and third parties. A civil law study.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the insurance contract as a privileged source of third-party problems in contract law. The analysis focuses on the standing of those persons who are – or one questions whether they are – in a legally protected position vis-à-vis an insurance contract without becoming parties thereto. The study is divided into two parts: one dedicated to the insurance contract and one devoted to third-parties.

In the first part, I define the insurance contract and characterise its structural elements: risk and interest. I then analyse the parties’ attributions, with a view to determining what they consist of and how they relate to one another. I argue that the insurance contract is a synallagmatic and aleatory contract of continued performance. In the second part, I analyse the rights or other active legal situations of which third parties may be the holders with regard to a contract, so better to characterise the position of the various kinds of third-parties in insurance relations. I examine the situations with a contractual and para-contractual source, with an emphasis, respectively, on the contract for the benefit of a third-party and on the direct action. I proceed to analyse the engagements for account of another and to compare the contracts of insurance taken out for account of another and for the benefit of another. I end with an analysis of collective and group insurance.

The analysis having come to an end, I conclude, with regard to the object of this study – third-parties – that just as the insured, in indemnity insurance, are the persons in whose personal sphere we must search for the loss, in contingency insurance they are those in whose personal sphere we must seek out the beneficiaries. A third-party insured exists whenever the policyholder is not itself the insured. The same is to say, whenever a contract of insurance is taken out for account of another or for account of whom it may concern. In this latter case, the insured are not directly identified at the time of contracting, and it may happen that no third-party insured ever exist. In any case, insurance taken out for account of another or of whom it may concern may be defined, precisely, as that in which there is, or there can be, at least one third-party insured. This is a contingent element in most individual insurance but it is necessary in all true group insurance contracts. The insured are the subjects of the insured risk: only they are situated within the direct sphere of protection of the insurance. Only they can be said to be covered by the insurance. Third-party insured, in that capacity, are also those that present themselves in the contract as the holders of the insured interest, those of whom one demands that they have an interest in the insurance. Third-party insured are typically, but not necessarily, the beneficiaries of a contract for the benefit of a third-party.

Third-party beneficiaries are such third-parties as are the holders of any active legal situation by effect of a contractual stipulation. Other than third-party insured that fall within this definition, one can also find third-party beneficiaries in the persons of the named beneficiaries in contingency insurance, in which they are granted the right to claim performance of the insurer’s obligation upon the occurrence of an insured event. However, if such right derives from a purely para-contractual source, third-parties will no longer be qualified as third-party beneficiaries but will rather be third-party holders of a direct action against the insurer.

On a last level of protection, we have the mere recipients of performance. Although they are not the holders of any active position as regards the insurance contract, the latter materially entitles them to receive performance, the contract functioning as the «cause» of their attribution. Finally, there are the insured persons, in personal insurance, that perform in such insurance a role functionally similar to that of the insured property in property insurance, in that they are the point of reference, in this case personal and not real, which contractually circumscribes the insured event. Their protection is linked to the need to obtain their consent and to respect the terms thereof.
""

Também publicado nas Actes du IIIe Congrès de l'Unión Mondiale des Agraristes Universitaires (Pour le Droit Rural et le Droit Agroalimentaire) "Aménagements rural et agriculture - Commerce international et agriculture - Rôle de l'Etat en agriculture". Nantes et Poitiers, 1994, pp. 105-125; bem como no Brasil pela Revista de Direito Civil, Imobiliário, Agrário e Empresarial (ISSN: 0102-8480), Vol. 20, n.º 77, 1996, pp. 48-59.

Vêm a lume quatro Estudos, cujo tema é o Objecto do Processo Penal.

1) No primeiro estudo, resolve-se uma série extensa de casos práticos, relacionados com a materialidade dos factos processuais, desenhando-se uma técnica de resolução global e completa.
Os casos da vida são agrupados vários núcleos:
— a alteração não substancial de factos (com recurso particular às concretizações da Jurisprudência nacional);
— a alteração substancial de factos autonomizáveis; dentro desta, a alteração substitutiva e a alteração cumulativa (em que, designadamente, se analisa as situações de concurso efectivo, real e ideal);
— os factos novos, atomísticos, plenamente autonomizáveis;
— as situações mistas, combinando a alteração substancial de factos com factos novos, plenamente autonomizáveis;
— a alteração substancial de factos não autonomizáveis, em que se prevê um grupo de situações relacionadas com o concurso de normas.
Analisa-se igualmente o regime processual correspondente a estas figuras (excepto o relativo aos factos não autonomizáveis, analisado com minúcia no quarto estudo).

2) O segundo estudo versa sobre a alteração da qualificação jurídica:
— Na primeira parte, a possibilidade de alteração da qualificação jurídica, com a mesma matéria de facto, elencando os argumentos a favor e contra.
— Na segunda parte, os direitos que cabem ao assistente e ao arguido, na fase de instrução.
— Na terceira parte, a possibilidade de o arguido e o assistente requererem a abertura de instrução, com o fito de debater a qualificação jurídica.
É ainda salientado o regime nas fases de julgamento e de recurso.

3) No terceiro estudo, analisa-se extensamente o regime da alteração substancial de factos não autonomizáveis, na fase de instrução.
Este estudo contém uma caracterização profunda da fase de instrução, bem como dos princípios e do Direito Processual Penal em geral.
O texto é acompanhado de vários quadros, em que se elencam as possibilidades práticas que surgem no fim da instrução, o cotejo entre a acusação e o despacho de pronúncia e ainda a recorribilidade da decisão instrutória.

4) No quarto estudo, é dada atenção ao acordo, na fase de instrução:
— Em primeiro lugar, a possibilidade de acordo para continuação da instrução entre os sujeitos processuais (solução que não está consagrada expressamente pelo Legislador).
— Em segundo lugar, a forma que o acordo deve revestir.

O tema do trabalho tem um interesse prático muito relevante, indispensável para as lides dos juristas em geral, em especial para os profissionais do Direito, na prática jurídico-forense, bem como para a aprendizagem do Direito Processual Penal.

This article aims at giving a comparative overview regarding the reforms of private companies’ legal capital regime throughout the whole European Union implemented during last ten years.
This essentially results in the existence of two basic models of intervention; on the one hand, general “closed” company type was changed by requiring a lower minimum legal capital threshold; on the other hand, new private company sub-versions were developed in order to make the access to liability limitation easier and cheaper.

Both Italian and Portuguese company laws have been recently
experiencing meaningful reforms in the field of private companies. Main targets were, in both of the cases, minimum legal capital regime and the new means for a company’s simplified establishment. In this article Italian and Portuguese solutions are comparatively analyzed, and Portuguese SQ’s reforms result to be more pondered and effective, besides more daring from several points of view.

Keypoints:
• Portugal has recently enacted a new competition law act: Law nº 19/2012 of 8 May 2012 (‘NPCA’)
• The NPCA has modernised and extensively modified Portuguese competition law, covering both substantial and procedural aspects
• The goal pursued by the NPCA is twofold: first, to bring Portuguese competition law closer to European competition law; second, to provide an effective answer to the commitments made by the Portuguese Republic in the context of the request for international financial assistance

Antes, fora publicado como "La tutela de los intereses particulares de los agricultores en el ordenamiento de las aguas. ¿Será que hay una alternativa hacia el poniente?". In AA.VV. Estudios de Derecho Agrario (Ponencias y Comunicaciones del VII Congreso Nacional de Derecho Agrario). Valencia: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, 1999,  pp. 351-378; e In Rivista di diritto agrario, A. LXXVIII, fasc. 1 – 1999, pp. 42-71.

Conferência / Palestra ao Mestrado Profissional em Direito da Empresa e dos Negócios da Unisinos - Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, São Leopoldo, Brasil, no dia 10 de setembro de 2020. Uma versão anterior serviu de base a um Seminário lecionado ao Mestrado em Direito da Sociedade da Informação da UniFMU, São Paulo, Brasil, dia 25 de abril de 2018.

"This article examines the procedural roles of a creditor and its debtor in a judicial oblique action that the former initiates against a third party. The article argues that the creditor’s procedural right to file a lawsuit against the third party, on the basis of its debtor’s substantive claim against that third party, is grounded on the creditor’s substantive prerogative legitimately to take legal action, judicially or extra judicially, against any such third party, such prerogative being a feature of a creditor’s substantive right vis-à-vis its debtor. The article builds upon that premise in order to examine the scope and limits of the creditor’s and the debtor’s possible interventions within and without the pending court action. Most particularly, it is submitted that, whilst the debtor may not terminate or in any way suspend the court action thus initiated by its creditor, nor replace the creditor in its position as claimant, the debtor may extra judicially dispose of its right vis-à-vis the third party defendant, and subsequently bring that fact to the knowledge of the court, in this way effectively frustrating the purpose of the pending court action.

(in Portuguese)"

É indubitável, e do senso comum, a necessidade de uma ininterrupta e contínua intervenção, nas mais distintas dimensões sociais e individuais, para a prevenção e combate à Violência contra as Mulheres e Violência Doméstica (Art.º 3º). Como objetivo da Convenção do Conselho da Europa de Istambul adotada em 11 de maio de 2011, aprovada e transposta para a legislação portuguesa pela Assembleia da República (Resolução nº 4/2013 de 14 de dezembro de 2012), Portugal vive uma complexa e dramática realidade que ultrapassa as gravosas situações mais noticiadas, ou seja aquelas que são mais frequentemente mediáticas e divulgadas pelos meios de comunicação social. Estas promovem a “construção de uma Opinião Pública nem sempre bem orientada para a causa da Violência e da Igualdade na sua génese, mas fundamenta-se sobretudo na violência, não trabalhando os mais graves problemas que estão ocultados na vida comum das Famílias, e das Mulheres em particular (vida pessoal e profissional). Importa salientar que houve uma efetiva evolução na assunção e implementação dos Direitos de Género, assim como nas questões que se referem à Igualdade, mas na União Europeia, e especialmente em Portugal, os Direitos das Mulheres são ostracizados e violados em permanência, com consequências demasiado gravosas para estas, assim como para a sociedade global de hoje e para as gerações vindouras.

Who benefits from the directors’ liability insurance contracted for the purpose set forth in article 396 of the Companies Code?

In this paper I try to pinpoint the universe of those injured parties entitled to recover damages directly against the liability insurer of the directors of a limited liability company who have contracted such insurance in fulfilment of their duty to provide a surety under article 396 of the Portuguese Companies Code. I argue that such universe coincides with that of the beneficiaries of any ther means of fulfi lling this duty. I pinpoint that universe by reference to the classes of injured parties protected under the Portuguese Companies Code. Finally, I apply the results of this analysis in support of the conclusion that the State is amongst the members
of that universe, in what regards the directors’ tax liability, but that the same cannot be said of those creditors who base their claims on the new environmental liability set of rules.

(in Portuguese)

The study examines the state and the main difficulties of the implementation of Directive 2008/48/EC on credit agreements for consumers using the examples of fourteen Member States of the
European Union. The analysis focuses on fully harmonised aspects of the Directive as well as on the provisions for which the Member States were given a wide margin of appreciation in achieving the objective of the Directive and options provided by the Directive. Furthermore, new regulations and regulations requiring interpretation are dealt with. Finally, the study analyses the regulation of credit agreements which fall outside the scope of the Directive.