A Taste of Ediscovery in Brazil

Olá!

Brazil is the next stop on our 2017 ediscovery world tour. As the only Portuguese-speaking country in South America, Brazil has the largest population, area and economy on the continent. An increase in industrial production, consumer and business productivity, and a stable currency have set the stage for flourishing business opportunities in Brazil, accompanied by heightened volumes of litigation and investigations…ripe for the use of ediscovery technology.

Brazil’s Unique Ediscovery Conditions

Brazil is a civil law jurisdiction, where there is no procedure or requirement to use discovery-like mechanisms in legal proceedings. Additionally, the process of collecting, filtering and reviewing data is unfamiliar to Brazil’s business culture, impaired by the fact that much corporate data is in a hard copy or non-searchable digital format. Given that a considerable volume of data is not in a format that makes ediscovery processing easy and streamlined, many Brazilian corporations view ediscovery processes and expenses as difficult to justify.

This does not mean, however, that ediscovery is absent in Brazil. Collecting and processing data in Brazil is driven mainly by practical necessity due to national and international regulatory investigations, international arbitration issues, mergers and acquisitions of Brazilian companies, and out-of-country litigation extending into Brazil. In all of these legal and regulatory scenarios, Brazilian companies are benefiting from ediscovery technology. Furthermore, in 2014 Brazil passed an anti-corruption law called the “Clean Compliance Act,” compelling some corporations and their counsel to take advantage of ediscovery technology in corporate compliance efforts.

What About Data Protection and Privacy in Brazil?

Currently, Brazil does not have an extensive set of data protection or privacy laws. However, Brazilian statutory law protects narrow classifications of data. For example, the Brazilian Federal Constitution and certain regulations, such as medical rules and consumer codes, contain privacy protections. Furthermore, Brazilian law does not expressly restrict cross-border data transfer, but transferring data out of Brazil is not the norm. Also, there have been recent changes impacting the need for increased security and protection of personal data, such as the Brazilian Internet Law. Lastly, keeping up with changes in Europe and Asia, it is highly expected that Brazil will enact its first over-arching data protection law in the near future.

Around the World with KLDiscovery

KLDiscovery is your international ediscovery resource, with current information about predictive coding in Australia and Ireland, ediscovery cooperation in Canada, fighting fraud in France, data protection in the UK, Japan and China, and ediscovery practices in Belgium.