The minister’s decision to use an action on another topic to try to shield from the US has divided members of the Supreme Court.
With the order, Dino eventually anticipated the rapporteur of the only action existing in the Supreme specifically on the application of, amid the evaluation of a court wing that was lacking firmness to banks’ owners to deal with the pressure of.
Zanin had signaled interlocutors and the financial market that would not give any rushes, without hearing the banks and others involved in the subject. Dino, in turn, took advantage of the rapporteur to immediately determine that orders from foreign governments cannot be applied in Brazil without approval of the Supreme.
Part of the court ministers evaluates that, even without being responsible for the subject in the court, Dino wanted to give a message to the banks who operate in Brazil. In reserved conversations, the minister signaled that financial institutions are prohibited from applying sanctions to Moraes and will punish those who disobey the determination.
In this way, Dino followed a different way from what a court ward preached, who bet on the caution promised by Zanin.
Dino’s decision was the result of conversations between STF members and bankers in recent weeks. The evaluation of this group in the Supreme was that there should be a opposition to the Trump government attacks against national sovereignty, according to two ministers heard by Sheet.
A Supreme Minister said, under reserve, that he even communicated to the owners of banks that the court could counter in an attempt to nullify the effects of magnitsky law on Brazilian territory. Dino’s decision would be the confirmation of this counterorde.
There was also expectation among government members (PT) about a Supreme decision that offered some kind of protection to Moraes. The doubt was about how the order would come, since Zanin’s position, contrary to a hurry, was known.
Banks represent, however, that the financial sanction against Moraes and Dino’s decision leave them in a delicate position.
The evaluation of a bank consulted by Sheet It is that the sanction of Americans did not necessarily mean that US legislation would be applied in Brazil. The fear, in fact, is with the developments outside the country of any breach of the magnitsky law in Brazilian territory.
Dino’s decision, therefore, opened a new strategy of acting from the Supreme against the Trump government’s offensives.
The case was under the command of Zanin because he had been drawn rapporteur of a request made by the PT leader who asks the Supreme to block the application of the magnitsky law in Brazil. The minister warned the interlocutors in court that he did not intend to make a decision in the short term.
The rapporteur sent the case to the (Attorney General’s Office) for demonstration and also wants to know the position of other stakeholders in the process, such as the AGU (Attorney General of the Union) and Febraban (Brazilian Federation of Banks).
Dino’s decision eventually changed this plan. The minister made the decision in a case alien to the case, without hearing the stakeholders, and even opened the possibility of punishing banks that apply financial sanctions against Moraes.
Specialists heard by Sheet They evaluated that the measure stands out than by the legal impact.
Hours after Dino trying to shield his colleague, the Trump State Department of Government has published on social networks a text saying that Moraes is “toxic to all legitimate companies and individuals seeking access to and their markets” and that “no foreign court can nullify the sanctions imposed by the US or protect someone from the severe consequences of breaking them.”
“People and entities under US jurisdiction are prohibited from maintaining any business relationship with him. Already those people and entities outside the American jurisdiction should act with maximum caution: those who offer material support to human rights violators can also be the subject of sanctions,” the US government threatened.
In the decision of Monday, Dino argued that foreign laws and executive orders do not have effects on people for acts in Brazilian territory. “The precedent states the criterion of territoriality, determining the incidence of the Brazilian authority on data collected and treated in Brazil,” said the minister.
Dino stated that this understanding is not restricted to cases related to Mariana’s tragedy – object of action – but seeks to “ward off serious and current threats to legal certainty in homeland territory.”
“Thus, impositions, restrictions on rights or coercion instruments performed by legal entities constituted under Brazilian law and have their headquarters and administration in the country, as well as those that have a branch or any professional, commercial or intermediation activity in the Brazilian market, resulting from constant determinations in foreign unilateral acts,” he adds.
The Supreme Minister does not quote Moraes or Trump in his decision. He stressed, however, that “it should be noted that the submission of a national state to the jurisdiction of another constitutes an authentic ‘act of empire’, thus understood as the exercise of his sovereign prerogatives.”
