Bruno Calfat Advogados represented companies of the sanitation sector in multiple legal proceedings seeking the annulment of decisions issued by the Regulatory Agency for Energy and Basic Sanitation of the State of Rio de Janeiro (AGENERSA), which had denied the approval of ordinary annual tariff adjustments based on arguments such as the financial difficulties faced by the population during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the legal support provided by the firm, the State Court of Rio de Janeiro accepted the concessionaires’ arguments that ordinary tariff adjustments constitute a mere inflation correction, not a genuine price increase. The approval of such adjustments by the public authority is therefore a binding obligation not a discretionary act, pursuant to Article 29, item V, of Federal Law No. 8,987/1995.
In this sense, the plaintiffs ensured the application of an important statutory right aimed at enabling the collection of sufficient funds to support the universalization of basic sanitation services, while still upholding the principle of tariff affordability, which governs all public service concessions (Article 6, §1, of Law No. 8,987/1995, and Article 22, item IV, of Law No. 11,445/2007).