Brazil’s impact-fee decree wins praise...and a lawsuit

Brazil’s president last month put a ceiling on the environmental-impact fees companies must pay in connection with their investment projects, drawing applause from companies and a lawsuit from green groups. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s decree (No. 6,848) follows an April 2008 Brazilian Supreme Court ruling that repealed a measure establishing a minimum impact fee based on 0.5% of the initial project investment. The court excised that measure, which was part of a 2000 law, on grounds that such fees must be based on the size of the impact, not the size of the investment. The court reasoned that the size of an investment does not necessarily reflect a project’s environmental impact, and that a fixed-minimum fee unfairly penalizes companies that invest... [Log in to read more]

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