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What Australian companies operating the Italy–Brazil corridor must know before they sue in the wrong country
Can you enforce an Italian civil court judgment against a Brazilian company in Brazil?
Yes — but not directly. An Italian judgment has no automatic force in Brazil. Every foreign judgment, without exception, must first be recognised through the homologação de sentença estrangeira — the homologation of a foreign judgment — before the Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ), Brazil's highest court for non-constitutional matters. Only after the STJ grants recognition does a Federal Court issue an enforcement order allowing seizure of the debtor's Brazilian assets. The process is purely formal: the STJ does not retry the case. But formal does not mean easy, and for Italian creditors it is routinely more expensive and slower than expected.
The EU–Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement entered provisional application on 1 May 2026, cutting tariffs on more than 90% of goods traded between the EU — including Italy — and Brazil. New commercial flows followed quickly. Australian companies trading or investing through Italian subsidiaries now have greater exposure to the Italy–Brazil corridor than ever before. Unpaid invoices, disputed supply contracts, and licence fee arrears are the inevitable consequence of growing trade volumes. When a Brazilian counterparty defaults, the first question a general counsel asks is: where do we sue? The answer is far from straightforward: choosing the wrong forum can add 12 months and tens of thousands of euros to the cost of recovery.
The STJ homologation process typically runs between 6 and 18 months from the date of filing. Those figures come from the STJ's own published docket statistics and from our experience across multiple matters in this corridor.
The range is wide because it depends on two variables: whether the petition is formally complete on first filing, and whether the Brazilian debtor contests the application. An uncontested, complete petition can be decided within six to eight months. A contested application, or one that triggers an emenda da petição inicial — an amendment order requiring the creditor to cure defects — routinely exceeds 14 months. In our files, the most common cause of an amendment order is not a substantive problem with the Italian judgment itself but a preventable documentary error — addressed in detail below.
Unlike in most common-law jurisdictions, there is no equivalent of the Australian registration procedure under the Foreign Judgments Act 1991 (Cth), under which a recognised foreign judgment can be registered in a superior court and enforced within weeks. Brazil has no bilateral enforcement treaty with Italy. There is no streamlined registration mechanism. The STJ process is the only route, and it applies regardless of the judgment's value.
After the STJ grants homologation, the successful party presents the homologation order to a Federal Court (Justiça Federal), which then issues the enforcement order. Attachment of assets — the penhora, a court-ordered freeze and seizure of specific assets — follows at that stage.
Articles 960 to 965 of the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure (Lei n. 13.105/2015) and Articles 216-C to 216-N of the STJ Internal Rules (Regimento Interno) set out the requirements. Every document must be apostilled under the 1961 Hague Convention on the Abolition of the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents (Italy is a contracting state; Brazil joined in August 2016). Every document must also be accompanied by a sworn Portuguese translation prepared by a tradutor juramentado — a translator sworn before a Brazilian Commercial Board — not a general legal translator.
The core document package is: (1) the full Italian judgment, including the motivazione — the reasoning section — not only the operative part; (2) evidence that the judgment is final and no longer subject to appeal; (3) evidence of proper service of process on the defendant; and (4) a valid apostille on each document.
The STJ requires that the applicant hold a Brazilian tax code (CPF, for individuals) or a Brazilian business registration number (CNPJ, for companies), or appoint a Brazilian attorney (advogado) who holds one. Italian creditors almost always appoint Brazilian counsel at this stage.
Most guides set out the document checklist correctly. What they do not explain is which items actually cause petitions to fail. Based on the pattern of amendment orders issued by the STJ, three specific problems recur for Italian creditors.
The first is submitting the judgment without separate proof that it is trânsito em julgado — unappealable under Italian law. The Italian judgment itself does not state this expressly. The creditor must obtain a separate certificate from the Italian court confirming that the appeal period has expired and no appeal is pending. Under Article 324 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure (codice di procedura civile), a judgment becomes unappealable after 30 days from notification of the full text, or six months from deposit in the court registry if it was never notified. Many creditors submit the judgment promptly but omit this certificate, triggering an amendment order.
The second failure concerns the apostille itself. Brazil's STJ internal rules require that the apostille be attached to the original court document bearing the judge's signature and the court's official stamp. Italian courts sometimes issue apostilled copies via their electronic registry system that carry a digital seal rather than the ink stamp the STJ examiners expect. An apostille on a document that lacks the physical court seal has been rejected at the STJ. The solution is to request a paper original with the court seal before applying for the apostille at the relevant Italian Prefettura or court of appeal.
The third failure is the translation scope. The STJ requires a sworn Portuguese translation of the fundamentação — the full reasoning section of the judgment — not merely the operative part (dispositivo). Italian judgments can run to 30 or 40 pages of reasoning in a commercial dispute. Creditors instructed to minimise costs often ask their sworn translator to render only the operative part. The STJ will reject this and issue an amendment order requiring the full translation. The additional translation cost is minor compared with the delay.
Iura novit curia — the court knows the law — is the Latin maxim that describes why the STJ's role is purely formal. It knows Italian civil procedure well enough to spot these gaps without being asked. The burden of getting the paperwork right falls entirely on the applicant.
This is the strategic question. The answer depends on four variables: where the debtor's assets are located, the size of the claim, the strength of the Italian jurisdiction clause, and your appetite for a two-stage process.
If the debtor has no meaningful assets in Italy, an Italian judgment — even a well-drafted one obtained promptly — produces nothing until it has passed STJ homologation. A payment order (decreto ingiuntivo), the fast-track Italian enforcement mechanism available to creditors with documentary evidence of a debt, can be obtained in Italy within 40 to 60 days for straightforward commercial claims. But it still requires STJ homologation before touching a Brazilian asset. Add 6 to 18 months of STJ process and the total recovery timeline from the date the invoice fell due could reach 24 to 30 months.
The alternative — suing directly in a Brazilian federal or state court — avoids homologation entirely. Brazilian commercial litigation in first instance typically runs 18 to 36 months for a contested claim, but enforcement is immediate upon judgment and there is no second-stage recognition process. Brazilian courts are also competent where the contract was to be performed in Brazil, which covers most supply and service contracts in this corridor.
Also material: Brazil's 10-year limitation period under Article 205 of the Brazilian Civil Code (Código Civil) runs from the date the underlying right was breached, not from the date of the Italian judgment. A creditor who obtains an Italian judgment quickly but then delays homologation does not stop the Brazilian clock running.
The Italian Civil Code (Italian Court of Cassation, Joint Divisions, judgment no. 26724 of 19 October 2007, Cass. civ., SS.UU., 19 ottobre 2007 n. 26724) established that Italian courts have jurisdiction where the defendant is domiciled in Italy or the obligation arose or must be performed in Italy. Many Italy–Brazil commercial contracts name Italian law and Italian courts. That clause is valid and the Italian courts will enforce it. Whether it is strategically useful depends on where the money sits.
A practical rule: if the claim exceeds EUR 150,000 and the debtor has identifiable Brazilian assets, the Italy-then-STJ route is worth the cost and delay — the Italian judgment carries more predictability as to quantum and can be easier to obtain summarily on documentary evidence. Below that threshold, Brazilian proceedings are often cheaper and faster in aggregate.
Step one: obtain the final Italian judgment and request the trânsito em julgado certificate from the Italian court. Timing: 30 to 90 days depending on the court's workload.
Step two: apostille the judgment and the certificate. Ensure both carry the physical court seal before presenting to the Prefettura (for civil court judgments, the apostille is issued by the Court of Appeal in whose district the issuing court sits). Timing: 15 to 30 days.
Step three: instruct a tradutor juramentado registered with a Brazilian Commercial Board to translate the full judgment including the reasoning section into Portuguese. Timing: 10 to 20 days for a standard commercial judgment.
Step four: file the homologation petition before the STJ through Brazilian counsel. The petition must include proof of the debtor's service of process, the apostilled documents, and the sworn translations. If the debtor is served again at this stage and does not contest, the matter proceeds to a single STJ Justice for decision. If contested, it goes to a full division.
Step five: present the STJ homologation order to the Federal Court competent for the debtor's domicile or asset location and request the enforcement order. At this point, attachment of assets — penhora — can be sought without further delay.
Yes. A payment order issued by an Italian court — including one that became final because the debtor did not oppose it within 40 days — is treated as a final judgment for STJ purposes. It must still pass through Articles 960–965 of the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure. The creditor must produce the payment order, proof that the opposition period expired without a challenge, and the trânsito em julgado certificate. The STJ has confirmed this in its internal practice.
No. The STJ does not review the merits. The debtor can only contest on formal grounds: that the Italian court lacked jurisdiction, that service of process was defective, that the judgment conflicts with a prior Brazilian res judicata, or that recognition would offend Brazilian public order (ordem pública). A substantive disagreement with the Italian judge's conclusions is not a valid ground of opposition before the STJ.
Costs have two main components. Brazilian counsel fees for a straightforward, uncontested homologation petition typically range from BRL 15,000 to BRL 40,000 (approximately AUD 4,500 to AUD 12,000 at current rates), depending on the complexity of the judgment and the seniority of the firm. Sworn translation costs depend on page count; a 30-page Italian commercial judgment typically costs BRL 3,000 to BRL 8,000. STJ filing fees are modest. If the debtor contests, counsel fees rise substantially. Italian legal costs to obtain the original judgment are separate and vary by procedure.
HREFLANG BLOCK:
Editorial Team — Panato Law Firm Staff
