Brazil

Medina Osório Advogados is pleased to record the holding of the 1st Petrobras Seminar on Administrative Sanctioning Law, an initiative of great institutional relevance for strengthening integrity, governance and compliance in Brazil. The event will bring together public authorities, Petrobras executives, judges and leading jurists, consolidating itself as a plural and highly qualified forum for dialogue. The opening panel will feature Petrobras’ President, Magda Maria de Regina Chambriard; the Chair of the Board of Directors, Bruno Moretti; Petrobras’ General Counsel, Wellington Cesar Lima e Silva; the Director of Governance and Compliance, Ricardo Wagner de Araujo; Petrobras’ Chief Inspector General, Edson Leonardo Dalescio Sá Teles; the Chair of the Public Ethics Commission, Manoel Caetano Ferreira Filho; and the Executive Secretary of the Office of the Comptroller General (CGU), Eveline Martins Brito. We are proud to highlight that the opening lecture will be delivered by our founding partner, Fábio Medina Osório, a jurist whose career has consolidated Administrative Sanctioning Law as a scientific and applied field in Brazil. Among the speakers, special mention should be made of the President of IBDA, Cristiana Fortini, and the Vice-President of IDASAN, Alice Voronoff, alongside names such as Judge Rogério Tobias de Carvalho (TRF-2), Luiz Fernando Delazari (Itaipu Binacional), Fernanda Alvares da Rocha (CGU), Antônio Carlos Vasconcellos Nóbrega (Ministry of Finance) and Bruno Espiñeira Lemos (Public Ethics Commission). This seminar reinforces the importance of integrating institutional experience, academic thought and legal practice in addressing the contemporary challenges of public ethics and Administrative Sanctioning Law.

Fábio Medina Osório Partner at Medina Osório Advogados. PhD in Administrative Law from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Master’s in Public Law from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Former Attorney General of Brazil. President of the International Institute for Studies of State Law (IIEDE). Law No. 14,230 of 25 October 2021 introduced a wide-ranging reform of Law No. 8,429/1992, known as the Administrative Improbity Law. Among the most significant changes are the requirement of specific intent (dolo específico) for the configuration of acts of improbity, the possibility of civil non-prosecution agreements, the redefinition of sanctioning hypotheses and, above all, changes to the regime of limitation periods and statutes of limitations during proceedings (prescrição intercorrente). In response to these changes, the National Association of Members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (CONAMP) filed Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) No. 7,236, accompanied by a request for interim relief, alleging that various provisions of the reform violated constitutional principles such as administrative morality, proportionality, legal certainty and the very institutional mission of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The issue quickly gained prominence before the Federal Supreme Court (STF). On 27 December 2022, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the rapporteur, partially granted the injunction, ad referendum of the Plenary, suspending provisions of the law relating to prescription. This was followed, on 16 May 2024, by a complementary vote in plenary and, on 23 September 2025, by a new ex officio interim decision, motivated by the alleged imminent risk of mass expiry of actions for improbity. The object of ADI 7,236 fell upon Article 2 of Law No. 14,230/2021, insofar as it amended several provisions of the Administrative Improbity Law. Of these, Article 23, § 5 drew particular attention: it provided that, once the limitation period was interrupted, the deadline would resume at half the original time, that is, only four years. CONAMP argued that this rule was incompatible with the reality of Brazilian civil procedure, in which complex actions take, on average, almost five years to be processed in each instance, which would render accountability for acts of improbity impracticable. The analysis of interim relief in ADI 7,236 reveals three successive moments in which the Supreme Court sought to balance the risks posed by the immediate application of the reform. In the first decision, on 27 December 2022, the rapporteur partially granted the injunction, recognising fumus boni iuris and periculum in mora only in relation to prescription. The provisions dealing with limitation periods and statutes of limitations during proceedings were therefore suspended, while the other requests were denied. On 16 May 2024, Moraes delivered a vote in Plenary declaring the partial nullity, with reduction of text, of Article 23, § 5, in order to exclude the expression that halved the limitation period. The aim was to prevent the eight-year period, after interruption, from being reduced to four. The judgment, however, was suspended by requests for review from Justices Gilmar Mendes and Edson Fachin. Finally, on 23 September 2025, in view of reports that more than eight thousand improbity actions could become time-barred within weeks, the rapporteur ex officio supplemented the interim relief. He reiterated that the regime of prescription during proceedings undermined the effectiveness of the law and once again suspended the validity of the expression that reduced the period. The rapporteur’s decisions were based on some central grounds. The plausibility of the argument that the reduction of the deadline weakened the constitutional protection of probity (Article 37, caput and § 4 of the Constitution) was emphasised. Also highlighted were the concrete risk of the mass extinction of ongoing proceedings, the incompatibility of the reduced period with the complexity of improbity actions — which require extensive evidentiary proceedings and adversarial debate — and the consistency of the measure with STF precedents, such as ARE 843.989-RG, which recognised the imprescriptibility of claims for damages to the Treasury caused by intentional acts. Although correct in identifying the danger of generalised prescription, the interim relief may be criticised for its premature character. The immediate suspension of § 5, since 2022, eliminated the effectiveness of the provision at once, without considering alternatives such as modulating effects on the basis of concrete cases of prescription. An intermediate solution would have allowed at least partial preservation of the legislative intent to expedite proceedings. On the other hand, the complementary measures of 2024 and 2025 show the STF’s attention to the practical realities of the judiciary. Data presented by state Public Prosecutors’ Offices indicated that application of the rule would result in the limitation of thousands of actions. The Court’s action, in this context, illustrates its role as guardian of constitutional effectiveness, adjusting the legal text to bring it into line with the republican principle and administrative morality. Nevertheless, within the scope of interim relief, the injunction granted presents a serious problem, namely that it empties the Plenary of its jurisdictional competence. By granting relief before the lapse of the time required for a possible prescription, the rapporteur in fact prevented the impugned provision from taking effect and emptied the substance of the main action. In this sense, it would have sufficed to grant the injunction one day after the lapse of the statutory deadline and thereafter submit the matter to the scrutiny of the Plenary. The trajectory of ADI 7,236/DF reveals how the Supreme Court progressively intervened, between 2022 and 2025, to set aside the effects of the rules on prescription introduced by Law No. 14,230/2021. The focus was on Article 23, § 5, whose provision for reducing the period, after interruption, could prematurely extinguish thousands of actions for improbity. The strongest argument for intervention lies in the risk of prescription without inertia on the part of the claimant. In lengthy and complex proceedings, the punitive claim could be extinguished even where the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the legitimate public entity had acted diligently, contrary to the very logic of prescription in Brazilian law, which has always been linked to procedural inactivity. Even so, less drastic solutions could have been envisaged, such as making the reduction of the deadline conditional upon proof of the claimant’s inertia, thereby preserving the legislative intent of conferring greater speed on proceedings. The Supreme Court’s monocratic decision, in suspending a legal provision dependent upon the passage of a specific period of time, opens the door to criticism of possible premature interference in the normative framework, since the effectiveness of this provision would still depend upon the occurrence of a factual condition. Ultimately, the interim relief in ADI 7,236 highlights the classic dilemma of constitutional review: protecting administrative probity and ensuring the effectiveness of the accountability system, but at the cost of straining legislative autonomy and the separation of powers. In this context, an injunction cannot be granted in such a way that it empties the very content of the direct action of unconstitutionality, depriving the Plenary of its decision-making competence.

On Wednesday, 24 September, Brazilian jurist and author Fábio Medina Osório will deliver two engagements in sequence: an online opening lecture for the Universidad Nacional de La Pampa in the afternoon, followed by an in‑person closing conference at FGV Direito Rio in the evening. Online Opening Lecture of the Postgraduate Diploma in Ibero-American Disciplinary Law — National University of La Pampa (online) Time: 16:00–17:00 (UTC−3) Platform: Microsoft Teams (downloading the app is recommended for best performance). Join: [Access via Microsoft Teams](https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZWJlNWY4ZWMtNjM1NS00YzI4LTg0YzAtYWUzY2M0MDc3ODZj%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22cf220266-9c62-44d0-b587-798332d696f6%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22fa0709a0-a955-468e-8aa9-f69e1aaa82ba%22%7d) Meeting ID: 297 799 653 315 5 Access code: Yw3MR6yk Audience: A focused cohort of approximately 16–17 legal professionals, ranging from first‑qualification practitioners to master’s‑level specialists, active in the Judiciary and Public Administration, with many serving as disciplinary investigators. Format: Open class; invitees with the link will be admitted to the session.   Closing Conference of the course “Administrative Improbity” — FGV Direito Rio (Botafogo Campus) Time: 19:00–22:00 (BRT / UTC−3) — in person Host: Professor Thaís Marçal Venue: FGV Direito Rio — Unidade Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro Drawing on a focused thematic cut of Medina Osório’s classic treatise Teoria da Improbidade Administrativa, the conference will revisit foundational concepts, recent jurisprudence and practical implications for integrity, compliance and public‑sector accountability.   Timetable (24 September, chronological) 16:00–17:00 (UTC−3) — Online Opening Lecture of the Postgraduate Diploma in Ibero-American Disciplinary Law — National University of La Pampa (Microsoft Teams). 19:00–22:00 (BRT / UTC−3) — Closing Conference of the course “Administrative Improbity” — FGV Direito Rio (Botafogo Campus), in-person.   About Fábio Medina Osório Partner at Medina Osório Advogados. PhD in Administrative Law from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Master’s in Public Law from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Former Attorney General of Brazil. President of the International Institute for Studies of State Law (IIEDE).

On 18 September 2025, Fábio Medina Osório will take part in the First Seminar on Administrative Sanctioning Law, organised by the Higher School of the Office of the Attorney General of the Union (ESAGU), in Brasília/DF. The event will also be broadcast live on ESAGU’s official YouTube channel. The programme will feature leading authorities and experts, with Medina Osório contributing at two key moments: Opening Session | 9:00 – 9:30 Opening Lecture | 10:15 – 11:15 Theme: “Constitutional Principles of Administrative Sanctioning Law” The seminar, convened by ESAGU, will bring together jurists and members of the Public Advocacy to discuss the foundations, principles and contemporary challenges of Administrative Sanctioning Law. Medina Osório expresses his gratitude to the Attorney General of the Union, Minister Jorge Messias, and to the Director of ESAGU, João Carlos Souto, for the invitation to speak. He also commends them for organising a seminar of such strategic importance for the advancement of this field in Brazil. Event Details: Date: 18 September 2025, 9:00 – 18:00 Venue: Auditorium of the Higher School of the AGU, Brasília/DF Live Broadcast: ESAGU YouTube Channel – www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dyNXXpYGyY