Oi goes to court and opens the way for judicial recovery – 02/01/2023 – Market

Oi filed this Wednesday (1st) with a request for urgent precautionary relief from the 7th Corporate Court of the TJRJ (Court of Justice of the State of Rio de Janeiro) to prevent its assets from being blocked at the request of creditors, for example.

If it is met, the company has 30 days to file a request for judicial recovery. In the document, the company claims to have debts of R$ 29 billion.

The request made by Oi to Justice is similar to the one made by Americanas in January, and aims to anticipate the effects of a judicial recovery.

Sought, Oi did not respond until the publication of this report.

According to the document drawn up by Basilio Advogados, Barbosa Mussnich Aragão Advogados and Salomão Kaiuca Abrahão Raposo Cotta, to which Sheet had access, the request is due to “imminent risk of irreparable damage”, in order to guarantee the preservation of the company’s activities.

In the text, the company recalls that it just left the largest judicial recovery process in the history of Brazil, which ended in December 2022.

“Unfortunately, several unpredictable, uncontrollable factors, and its current economic and financial situation made it essential to resort to judicial protection to implement a new stage of its restructuring and guarantee the preservation of the company, as a great generator of jobs and income”, it states in the document. .

The company also says that the first judicial recovery was “unquestionably successful”, but that the company’s capital structure remains unsustainable. “There are approximately BRL 29 billion in financial debts alone, with ECA holders, bondholders and National Banks, and more than half of this amount is linked to the US currency, running the risk of increase due to exchange rate fluctuations, ” says the text.

In the guardianship request, the company says that the non-payment of more than R$ 600 million due on the 5th of February would result in the early maturity of almost the entire financial debt (R$ 29 billion), due to the clauses provided for in their financial contracts.

Filipe Denki, director of the Commission for Business Recovery and Bankruptcy of the Federal Council of OAB and partner at Lara Martins Advogados, classifies the request for guardianship as “a bomb”, given that Oi has just left a judicial recovery.

In addition, the lawyer says that a new lawsuit is strange. “The law in its article 48 prohibits companies from asking for judicial recovery again within five years of the concession”, he says.

However, the lawyers argue that the first recovery does not constitute an obstacle to the granting of the precautionary measure, given that five years have passed since the granting of the last process, which took place in February 2018.