1 Outsourcing — An Endless Source
of Conflict in Brazil
By Luis Mendes, Luciano Dequech
and Thiago Teno
ACC LEADING PRACTICES PROFILE
5 The Role of General Counsel and
Corporate Counsel in Latin America:
AN EXCERP T FROM AECOM
By Lillian Moyano Yob
a special supplement to ACC Docket
Outsourcing — An Endless Source
of Conflict in Brazil
By Luis Mendes ( lmendes@pn.com.br), Pinheiro Neto Advogados, Luciano Dequech ( luciano.dequech@odebrecht.com),
Odebrecht Agroindustrial S.A., and Thiago Teno ( tteno@pn.com.br), Pinheiro Neto Advogados
ACC recently organised a seminar in
Brazil about labour and employment
issues related to “outsourcing” in Brazil. It proved to be a success in terms
of audience attendance and review.
Outsourcing is a hot topic in Brazil
and, in some cases, may pose liabilities
and litigation for companies.
For illustrative purposes, unofficial data shows that in Brazil there
are more than 10 million workers
who could be classified as directly or
indirectly “outsourced.” Unofficial data
also shows there are currently 5,000-
plus labour claims revolving around
outsourcing in the Superior Labour
Court alone.
In this article, “outsourcing” stands
for the hiring of an individual (
self-employed worker) or a legal entity
(specialised company) to perform
certain services for the hiring company
(service taker).
The legal framework
Brazil is a civil law country. This
means that the rights of employers
and employees are set out in two main
statutes: the 1988 Federal Constitution
and the 1943 Consolidated Labour
Laws (known, in Brazil, as CLT). Collective agreements and specific laws
on certain matters and ordinances can
also establish rights and obligations.
In general, court decisions, however
relevant, do not operate as binding precedents (unlike what happens in common law countries). This does not hold
true for Brazilian labour courts, though.
In the last decades, the Superior Labour
Court and the Regional Labour Courts
have increasingly issued “statements”
that eventually work as binding precedents for want of specific legislation.
For example, the CLT regulates
labour and employment relations in its
900-odd articles. The Superior Labour
Court alone has issued more “
statements” (at different levels) than the
number of articles in the CLT.
SAVE THE DATE
April 2014 Latin American Briefings
drafts due by Jan. 3.