LS Brazil Outlook | Mar 2020 | Modern slavery: new challenges in Brazil

Mar
2020

Modern slavery: new challenges in Brazil

Brazil’s bid to join the OECD and the growing impact of corporate social responsibility on the reputation and evaluation of companies are bringing higher scrutiny to the topic of modern slavery in the country.
This issue of LS Brazil Outlook addresses changes in mechanisms to file complaints against multinationals companies in the context of the OECD bid. It also discusses the importance of compliance programs to avoid criminal liability in an article by guest author Natasha do Lago. Two other articles detail civil and labor-law consequences of slave-like work being found in any stage of a company supply chain.

On this issue | March 2020

New framework to secure civil penalty

Brazil has been working to punish practices related to slave labor not only as a crime but on the civil sphere as well. Examples ranging from expropriation of real estate to cancelation of commercial registration show the country’s intention...

Risks to employers and outsourcers

Companies that subject workers to degrading conditions may have their activities suspended and their names included into a “dirty list”. To avoid risks, companies need to adopt compliance measures to grant decent working conditions for their...

Brazil's OECD membership bid intensifies scrutiny on modern slavery

OECD bid leads to changes

Brazil’s bid to join the OECD requires increasing efforts to repress forced labor. Among them, improvement of mechanisms to allow for the filing of complaints and to provide effectiveness to such complaints. Multinationals should pre-emptively...

Companies can mitigate legal uncertainty

Subjective criteria adopted from criminal law to fight slave-like work in Brazil may result in sentences of up to 8 years in prison for someone found guilty of such crimes. Compliance programs can reduce such risks, writes guest author Natasha...