Comparative study of international litigation in Brazil and Germany

In a lecture delivered on the occasion of the 26th annual meeting of the German-Brazilian Lawyers’ Association (Deutsch-Brasilianische Juristenvereinigung), Dr. Jürgen Samtleben provided an overview of international litigation following the 2016 entry into force of the new Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure. His address, now published in the Max Planck Private Law Research Papers, traces in particular the parallels to corresponding provisions in German legislation.

With its freshly enacted Code of Civil Procedure, legal proceedings have been placed on a new legal footing in Brazil. Among its regulations, the Code also contains provisions governing international lawsuits, some of which represent new approaches. In his contribution on this topic, Dr. Jürgen Samtleben (from 1971 to 2002 head of the Centre of Excellence for Latin America at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law) gives a systematic overview of the rules on international litigation from a Brazilian perspective.

The central focus of the paper is to clarify the framework conditions that apply in instances of international litigation: Is the court competent to rule on the case? What happens if proceedings regarding the dispute are already pending in a different country? Can a foreign judgment be recognized domestically? In setting out his analysis, Samtleben charts the key legal sources in national law, interstate treaties and public international law, tracing the parallels to German and European rules. In addition, he identifies those significant differences which, in his assessment, could create complications for international transactions between Germany and Brazil.

The article is accessible at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3418801