Civil Law and Business Law
What the exam tests
Civil and business law questions focus on general theory of civil law, obligations, contracts, civil liability, and business entities. The delegate must know civil liability because it intersects with state liability and with crimes against property.
Core concepts
- Pessoas naturais e jurídicas: capacity, emancipation, and the legal personality of companies.
- Negócio jurídico: validity requirements (agent, object, form), defects of consent (error, fraud, duress), and simulation.
- Obrigações: dar, fazer, não fazer; default and mora.
- Responsabilidade civil: subjective (art. 186) and objective (art. 927, sole paragraph); nexo causal and exclusions.
- Empresário e sociedade: registro, nome empresarial, and the difference between sociedade limitada and sociedade anônima.
- Recuperação judicial e falência: Lei 11.101/2005 and its 2020 reform.
Traps
- Confusing incapacidade absoluta with relativa; the former requires representation, the latter assistance.
- Simulação makes the act null, not merely voidable.
- Responsabilidade objetiva in the Civil Code arises from risk of the activity, not from the mere exercise of a lawful activity.
- Desconsideração da personalidade jurídica: the 2015 Code of Civil Procedure adopted the teoria maior (abuse of personality) for civil execution, while the Consumer Code uses the teoria menor.
Rule of thumb
For civil liability, verify four elements: conduct, fault or risk, damage, and causal link. If any is missing, there is no duty to compensate. For business questions, distinguish obrigação de meio from obrigação de resultado.
Worked example
A company's employee causes an accident while performing his duties. The company is objectively liable under art. 932, III, and art. 933, with the right of regress against the employee if he acted with fault. The exam expects the identification of the empregador as liable and the possibility of ação de regresso.