By: Vitor Ferrari and Ivan Kubala
It is already common knowledge that Oi S/A, or simply “Hi”, is going through a serious financial crisis due to the lack of control over its debts and the difficulty in generating cash to pay them off. Due to this scenario, and seeking to curb enforcement proceedings, seizures and account blocking, which would certainly lead the company to bankruptcy, the company was forced to file for judicial recovery in 2016, which was granted in 2018.
In this way, the company obtained essential time to analyze its delicate situation and propose a judicial recovery plan to pay off all existing debts.
From a technical point of view, the judicial recovery process of Oi S/A was successful: its judicial recovery plan was approved; important assets were sold, such as telecommunications and pay TV operations; the company returned to a specific area, internet plans; and most importantly: it did not go bankrupt.
However, analyzing the process in a practical way, it was not enough to pay off all of the company's debts, so that new executions, seizures and blocks may fall on the company's assets.
Therefore, the company decided to file a request for urgent relief, so that the collection of its debts could be suspended, which was granted by the competent court. The company's main idea is to request a new request for judicial recovery.
The big question about this new fact is whether the company can request a new request for judicial recovery, since it has just closed the first one.
To determine whether the company can request a new request for judicial recovery, it is not necessary to observe the date of completion of the judicial recovery, but rather the date on which the decision was made that granted the processing of the judicial recovery.
Under the terms of the law on judicial recovery and bankruptcy, a company may only request a new judicial recovery if the 5-year period has already passed since the granting of the first judicial recovery.
As in the case of Oi S/A, the decision that granted the processing of its first judicial recovery is from 2018, the company is able to file for a new judicial recovery process in 2023.
In this case, as the request for urgent relief to suspend charges was granted by the competent Court, the company has up to 30 days to file a new request for judicial recovery, which will be granted by the competent Court, if all the necessary prerequisites are present.
With the collaboration of Luis Felipe Simão