The Superior Court of Justice (STJ) has changed its understanding on the interest of amounts deposited in court by debtors in collection actions.  The judgment reviewed Repetitive Theme No. 677 of the STJ, establishing the following statement: “In enforcement proceedings, the deposit made as security for the judgment or as a result of attachment of financial assets does not exempt the debtor from paying the consequences of late payment, as provided for in the enforcement instrument. When the money is actually delivered to the creditor, the balance of the judicial account should be deducted from the final amount due”.

In accordance with the new understanding, the judicial deposits are not equivalent to the payment of the debt, so that when the process is closed and the creditor has access to the amounts, the debtor will still be subject to the payment of interest, even after the judicial deposit has been made.

In practice, the financial institution that keeps the amount is still responsible for the interest that already inflated the deposited amount. The debtor, on the other hand, will be responsible for the charges for delays contractually provided for and arising after the deposit, after discounting the adjustment made by the financial institutions.

In this specific case, Minister Nancy Andrighi ruled in favor of the appeal to determine the incidence of default interest provided for in the judicial instrument until the effective date of release of the credit in favor of the appellant, at which time the balance of the judicial deposit and its additions paid by the depositary financial institution should be deducted from the amount due.

The trial was closed on October 19, 2022, by a score of 7 votes to 6. The winning opinion was that of Reporting Minister Nancy Andrighi, joined by Ministers João Otávio de Noronha, Laurita Vaz, Maria Thereza de Assis Moura, Herman Benjamin, Benedito Gonçalves and Og Fernandes.