By: Vitor Ferrari and Ivan Kubala

The Distinguished Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo has officially created business and arbitration courts in large cities in the interior of the State, such as Sorocaba, São José do Rio Preto, Campinas and Ribeirão Preto.

According to the Court of Justice itself, the aforementioned courts will have jurisdiction to judge cases that deal with Business Law and Public Limited Companies, industrial property and unfair competition, franchising, Judicial Recoveries and Bankruptcies, cases arising from Arbitration, and also cases related to the Football Public Limited Company (SAF).

The main idea is that these new courts, added to the existing ones that gained new powers over time, will be able to cover the entire state territory, becoming regional courts that will also be responsible for judging cases from neighboring cities.

According to the São Paulo legal profession, the creation of such courts is of utmost importance for the procedural rite itself, since it will bring more speed, as it increases the number of courts, as it mitigates the agglutination of cases in a few courts, even more so because the subject matter addressed in the records is complex and very specific, taking a long time to be judged; and it makes access to justice easier, since those who need to seek help from the judiciary will be able to do so closer to their home.

Furthermore, since the courts are specialized, the judges who work there will also become specialists. With this specialization in the subject matter, the tendency is for the decisions handed down to be more in-depth and better founded, raising the quality of the case law framework. In this way, the decisions become more predictable, improving legal certainty regarding the matter in question in the long term, which benefits everyone.

However, having a judge who is an expert in the subject is not enough to ensure that the case unfolds in a way that takes into account the interests of the party. Specialized lawyers are even more important, since the lawyer is responsible for defending the interests of his client, while the judge only focuses on the procedural facts. Therefore, it is essential that specialists with extensive practical experience are responsible for defending the interests involved.

With the collaboration of Luis Felipe Simão