By Vitor Antony Ferrari, Ivan Kubala and Nicoly Crepaldi Minchuerri*

Bankruptcy and recovery procedures are very large and complex processes, so it is impossible for judges to conduct them without specialized help, even more so when they are responsible for judging hundreds of different cases.

In order to ensure speed and legal certainty in these procedures, the legislator created the figure of the “judicial administrator”, a kind of longa manus of the magistrate, who, supervised by both the magistrate and the Creditors' Committee, acts to organize the procedure, informing the magistrate of the main events.

It is important to note that the judicial administrator is not the lawyer of the recovering party, since he is only responsible for the administration of the recovering party's acts, whether in court or in the administrative sphere, representing solely its interests.

The judicial administrator is a true administrator of the process itself, whose role is to ensure the legality, publicity and speed of the acts carried out in court. To this end, the administrator has a series of prerogatives, including being able to request, from both creditors and debtors, the presentation of any information that he/she deems pertinent to the correct development of the process.

Its performance must be fully guided by legal requirements, which obligates it to perform a series of acts essential to the development of the process: providing information about the process to interested creditors; preparing a list of creditors, containing both the value and the classification of the credits; consolidating the general list of creditors, requesting the appointment of a general meeting of creditors before the Court; and even hiring specialized professionals, subject to prior approval by the Court, to provide assistance, if necessary.

Although his power is not actually decision-making, as this is the responsibility of the judge, who is limited to merely giving his opinion on the issues raised, the judicial administrator is responsible for ensuring procedural order. In this way, by maintaining it and informing both the judge and the parties about the procedural developments, the judicial administrator ensures the soundness of the process, allowing the judge to judge it appropriately.

In short, the judicial administrator is responsible for the procedural organization, and may take a series of measures to make it effective; and communication of the main acts to the magistrate and the parties, keeping them up to date with the events, and thus allowing the correct development of the case.

(With the collaboration of Luís Felipe Meira M. Simão)