TJPE upholds conviction against Celpe.
An energy concessionaire was ordered to pay R$ 10 in damages for improperly including a user's name in the SPC and Serasa credit bureaus' bad debt registers; the company is expected to appeal the decision once again.
Raphael Coutinho _PE247 – The Pernambuco Energy Company (Celpe) remains ordered to pay R$ 10 in damages for moral harm to a merchant from Garanhuns, in the Agreste region of Pernambuco, for the improper inclusion of his name in the bad payers register of the Credit Protection Service (SPC) and Serasa. The decision, by Judge Itabira de Brito, of the 1st Civil Chamber of the Court of Justice of Pernambuco (TJPE), was published in the Electronic Official Gazette, this Monday (9).
The court records show that the merchant from Garanhuns had an outstanding bill for R$1.036,06, due on March 02, 2010. However, according to documents attached to the lawsuit (proof of payment of the bill), the bill had been paid on March 30, 2010, less than a month after its due date. Celpe, however, included the merchant's name in the list of defaulters. Judge Rinaldo Adilson de Souza, of the 1st Civil Court of Garanhuns, ordered the company to compensate the client for moral damages, as well as remove his name from the SPC/Serasa defaulters' register.
“(...) the denial of the requested preliminary injunction results in damage that is difficult or impossible to repair for the requesting party, as it undermines its credibility with businesses and other financial institutions with which it interacts,” stated Judge Rinaldo Adilson de Souza. However, Celpe filed an appeal with the TJPE (Court of Justice of Pernambuco), requesting the reversal of the decision. Among the arguments presented in the appeal, the company maintained that it acted within its legal rights when registering the client, since the client was in arrears with payments. Celpe is expected to appeal the decision again.