1. BRAZIL – PRELIMINARY NOTIONS
Brazil is a federation of 27 States, ruled by a Federal
Constitution and by several other laws : federal, issued by the
States, or Municipal.
Brazil is a continetnal country, comprising 87,547,403
square Kilometers, and its population reaches 200 million.
Brazi’s net gross product in 2011 was the world’s eight,
reaching 2,8 trillion US dollars.
Federal laws regulating corporate registration state that
such activity must be developed by the States, under the
guidance and technical orientation of of the Union.

2. The Rio Trade Board is the oldest in Brazil,dating back
from 1809, when the Portuguese Royal family , fleeing from
Napoleon, came to live in Brazil.
Back in the past,the basic law for businesses was the
Commercial Code, enacted in 1850. Many associative forms
ewere regulated by teh Commercial Code, but the creation of a
limited libility partnership in 1919 brought forth a growing
distance from the old Commercial Code. Pursuant to Federal
Constitution dated 1988, the so-called Citizen Constitution, a
variety of new legal rules were also enacted, in order to allow for
new concepts of citizenship.

3. Among such new laws, the Civil Code was enacted in
2002 and served the purpose of eliminating the age- old
distinction between civil relations or contracts and business
relations or contracts.
New regulations were also enacted in relation to
corporate governance standards for public corporations, and
several standards for the use of IT by all public bodies was also
put into force. Aiming at allowing for all the citizens to be able
to perform some form of economic activity, thus supporting
themselves within the boundaries of the law, Congress enacted
laws creating two new kinds forms of small business entities.
Further, pursuant to Constitutional Amendment Nr. 18,
Public Administration officers are now liable for the efficiency of
their deeds, on top of the old rules of law, morality, impersonal
treatment of public affairs.

4. The Board of Trade of the State of Rio de Janeiro
accepted the challenge of becoming a very efficient
administrative body. With this scope, many old-timers whose
behaviour was deemed inadequate were dismissed from its
staffa, all with reason, as it is impossible in Brazil to dismiss a
public or civil servant without due legal cause.
Two public contests were made in order to allow for the
hiring of new specialists.
Now in his second and last term in ofice,the Governor of
the State of Rio de Janeiro has decreed that amongst all other
bodies of the State Administration, the modernization of all
public registration bodies in our State should befall on the
Board’s shoulders . This is a great honour and also a recognition
of the work being now performed by the Trade Board.

5. It has been a great pleasure for all of us to be able to
make this brief presentation to our coleagues at CRF 2012 .
We have also written a short paper with further details
and some statisctics on the work done buy the Brazilian Trade
Boards in general, and Rio’s in particular. We expect that this
has been handed out to all of you, and we hope this is clear.
I’d now like to invite Mr. Gustavo Borba, the attorney-
general of the Rio Trade Board, so that he may perhaps clarify in
further detail the mechanisms used by our Trade Board in its
integrated registry .
Thank you for your attention.