Americanas obtains injunction to prevent power cuts and eviction of stores – 02/01/2023 – Market

Americanas managed to prevent, in court, concessionaires from cutting off the supply of water, energy, internet and other services to their stores for non-payment. The decision also prevents evictions from properties occupied by the company.

The action had been filed on Monday (30), and the sentence was handed down on Wednesday (1st) by the 4th Corporate Court of the Judicial District of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

“I grant incidental urgency relief, to determine that all concessionaires, mainly Enel and Light, refrain from interrupting the provision of essential services, in any establishment of the Americanas Group, for the collection of credits subject to this judicial reorganization, or that is, all those whose taxable event occurred before the request for judicial recovery”, says the sentence, by Judge Luiz Alberto Carvalho Alves.

In the event of non-compliance, concessionaires are subject to a daily fine of R$ 100,000.

“I also grant the request for incidental injunctive relief for the lessors of the properties to be reorganized to refrain from issuing an eviction order, due to tenant debts prior to the request for judicial recovery, as well as suppliers and partners with contracts in force , which have express resolution clauses, refrain from terminating them in view of the imperative need to maintain the activity carried out, for the uplift of the Americanas Group”.

“Without its commercial establishments, or even without the provision of essential services, there will simply be no way to ensure the uplift of the economic group, making judicial recovery unfeasible, to the detriment of all its creditors”, considered the judge.

In the process, there is a record that Enel warned that it would cut the energy of the establishments of the Hortifruti brand, which belongs to the group, from February 8, due to non-payment. And Light sent at least three supply cut notices to the group.

Light appears on the list of creditors presented in the request for judicial recovery with a debt of R$ 919 thousand. To Eletropaulo, now called Enel São Paulo, Americanas owes R$ 442 thousand. The retailer also owes R$ 25,000 to another Enel company, Enel Green Power.

Americanas points to high debts also with telephone companies. With Claro, for example, the debt is R$ 24.1 million. But the list of creditors does not identify whether the value corresponds to the provision of services or the commercial partnership.

In the real estate part, at least 12 eviction actions involving the group’s facilities would have already been moved, due to late rents. One of the cases is at Plaza Shopping, in Niterói, managed by the consortium Aliansce Sonae + BR Malls. According to the list of creditors in the judicial recovery process, the debt is R$ 319 thousand.

“Although it is excessively costly for the landlord to maintain the lease agreement in force without due consideration, in the same way that it is also painful for public service concessionaires to maintain the service in the face of default by the debtor, the fact is that the only way out payment of creditors is the permanence of the business activity”, commented Gabriel de Britto Silva, legal director of Ibraci (Brazilian Institute of Citizenship), which filed a lawsuit asking for compensation to Americanas investors.

Fernanda Brigatti collaborated.