Brazilian Court endorses collection of foreign gambling debt

The story that began at a poker tournament at the Wynn casino ended on Tuesday (13/6). In the STJ, the trial dragged on since December last year, with repeated requests for a hearing. With the minister Paulo de Tarso Sanseverino, the majority of votes were formed for the possibility of collecting the debt in Brazil.

"Anyone who visits a foreign country, enjoys his hospitality and freely contracted licit obligations, can not return to his country of origin seeking civil impunity. Injury to the good faith of a third party is evident, as well as unjust enrichment, capable of disrupting public order and good manners," argued the rapporteur, Minister Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva.

In the case dealt with in Special Appeal 1,628,974, of São Paulo, the debtor would have issued four "vouchers" as a means of payment - used to instruct a monitorial action against him. The prosecutor questioned the effectiveness and legality of the monitorial.

The case came to the STJ after the São Paulo Court of Appeals (TJ-SP) ruled in favor of the US casino. The judges understood that the casino could, in fact, collect it in Brazil. Even though, according to the Brazilian legal system, debt collections contracted in casinos are not properly regulated.

This, however, is not the rapporteur's interpretation in the STJ. For him, the debt is valid. "Although the Brazilian does not allow judicial collection of gambling debts, the American, applicable in this case, authorizes it." According to Cueva, the controversy over the collection of debts contracted abroad is not a rigid notion, but a criterion that must be seen according to the evolution of society.

"Public order is a changeable concept, linked to morality and the legal order in force at a given historical moment. It is a criterion that must be revised according to the evolution of society," he said. For Cueva, "there is no prohibition to collect gambling debt, because there is equivalence between foreign law and Brazilian law, since both allow certain games of chance, supervised by the State, and in respect of which, the collection is admitted."

Source: GMB / Jota.info