As understood by the Superior Court of Justice, creditor must require in five days as of the first business day of the debt payment, the removal of the debtor’s name from the credit protection services.
The decision was rendered by the Second Section of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), which understood, when judging a Special Appeal (REsp 1.424.792), to be incumbent on the creditor to cause the debtor’s name to be removed from the default register.
The five‐day term was defined by analogy to the provisions of article 43, third paragraph, of the Consumer Protection Code (CDC), which sets forth that: “Consumer may demand, when any inaccuracy is found in his/her data and register, the immediate correction thereof, and the registrar shall, within a term of five business days, inform the change to any receiver of the incorrect information”.
The reporting judge of the proceedings, Luís Felipe Salomão, also emphasized the provisions of article 73 of the Consumer Protection Code (CDC), which characterizes the failure to immediately correct the inaccurate information regarding consumers contained in a data base as a crime.
Note that the settlement of a five‐day term benefits not only the consumer, which will have a solid base to legally and effectively demand the removal of his/her name from the referred register, but also the provider, which may adjust its internal procedures in order to make compliance with the term feasible.
The appeal was judged as repetitive, due to the existence of several proceedings addressing the same subject in lower courts. Thus, the understanding of the Second Section will serve as a guidance to all of the other courts of Brazil, preventing that new similar appeals be filed at the STJ.
