Interest and monetary correction in divorce

STJ guarantees the ex-wife monetary correction and interest on the values of the corporate share of a company established during the marriage A man was ordered by the Third Panel of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) to pay interest and monetary correction on the shares of the company he had in partnership with his ex-wife. The business, which ended after the couple's separation, was the subject of a legal dispute following the divorce. In court, the judge granted the petitioner monetary correction and interest of 1% per month on the assessed value of the corporate shares. Family Law and Succession specialist lawyer Alexandre Dalla Bernardina explains that when a person owns a company and gets divorced, the business can be included in the division of assets. "Unfortunately, it is very common in situations of divorces of couples who have businesses to be divided, for the spouse who manages the company to postpone the division of assets. In this sense, they improperly take advantage of the slowness of the judicial process to delay the delivery of assets and rights to the other spouse. Exactly to prevent this practice, the Superior Court of Justice imposed the incidence of default interest on the value corresponding to the corporate participation that should be delivered to the 'non-business' spouse, which represents a significantly considerable loss to discourage the negligent and procrastinating behavior of the parties in judicial asset division processes," he comments. Lawyer Tomás Baldo explains that, legally, the assessment of the value of a partner's shares is carried out through an accounting balance sheet specifically intended for this purpose. The aim is to reach the real value, that is, the market value of this corporate participation. "In situations of couples who have businesses to be divided, the spouse may not even be an effective partner, but, due to the community property, will be entitled to the value corresponding to half of the shares. In the case decided by the Superior Court of Justice, in addition to the market value of the shares that must be delivered to the affected spouse, monetary correction and legal interest will apply. Regarding monetary correction, factors such as IGP-M or INPC can be used. Legal interest corresponds to 1% per month, a percentage that has great power to inhibit procrastination." For Bruna Pereira Aquino, lawyer and law professor, the case sets a positive precedent. "The payment of interest on the value of the corporate shares aims to eliminate the loss resulting from the exclusive management of one of the spouses to the detriment of the other, under penalty of consolidating an undue imbalance in the division of assets agreed upon in the settlement," she emphasizes.