Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ) ruled on Special Appeal No. 2,261,458/SP, with Justice Raul Araújo as the reporting judge, in a decision published on June 30, 2026.
The case involved Banco Fibra S.A. on one side and Qualipol Indústria e Comércio de Plásticos Ltda., a company undergoing judicial reorganization, on the other.
At the lower-court level, the creditor bank had its enforcement proceeding suspended by a state court ruling, which held that any attempt to seize assets or collect the debt would first have to go through the court overseeing the debtor company’s judicial reorganization. The Superior Court of Justice overturned that decision.
Below are 5 key points established by the reporting judge:
1. When there is no dispute over the nature of the claim, the proceeding may move forward directly: Where the bank, the debtor company, and the judicial administrator already agree that the claim falls outside the judicial reorganization, there is no need to wait for a formal ruling from the reorganization court on the matter. Requiring such a wait, in this situation, is an unnecessary obstacle.
2. The reorganization court may intervene only with respect to assets essential to the company’s operations: The law allows the reorganization court to temporarily suspend a seizure only when the asset in question is an essential capital good, necessary for the company to keep operating. Outside that scenario, it may not block or control the collection effort.
3. This protection has an expiration date: A company under reorganization is granted an initial period of protection against collection efforts (known as the “stay period”). Once that period ends, the protection over essential capital goods also ends, and the creditor may proceed normally with collection.
4. The guarantee’s protection applies only up to the value of the asset given as collateral: Claims secured by a fiduciary transfer or assignment fall outside the judicial reorganization because the asset given as collateral already belongs, in a sense, to the creditor. This exclusion, however, applies only up to the value of that asset; if the debt exceeds that value, the remaining balance is treated as an unsecured claim within the reorganization.
5. Cash and receivables do not qualify as “essential capital goods”: The protection that prevents the seizure of essential capital goods during the initial period does not apply to cash or receivables given as collateral. In those cases, collection may proceed normally even during that period.
On these grounds, the Superior Court of Justice authorized the collection effort against the company under reorganization to proceed, subject only to the caveat that the reorganization court may intervene where the seizure targets an asset essential to the company’s operations, and only during the initial period of protection.
In practice, holders of this type of secured claim should assess three factors: (i) whether there is any disagreement over the nature of the claim; (ii) whether the seized asset is essential for the company to operate; and (iii) whether the reorganization’s initial period of protection has already ended.
