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Out of juice: English courts dismiss orange cartel mass claim as time-barred under Brazilian law
Out of juice: English courts dismiss orange cartel mass claim as time-barred under Brazilian law
22 July 2026
Series
Blogs
22 July 2026
In December 2025, in Viegas & Ors v Cutrale & Anor [2025] EWHC 3158 (Comm), the English Commercial Court found that the claims of more than 1,500 Brazilian orange growers against members of an alleged Brazilian orange juice cartel were time barred as a matter of Brazilian law. Earlier this year, on 2 March 2026, the Court of Appeal refused the claimants’ application permission to appeal, bringing those claims to an end.
The Commercial Court’s judgment is available here: Flavio de Carvalho Pinto Viegas & Ors v Rosana Falcioni Cutrale & Anor [2025] EWHC 3158 (Comm)
We note that Linklaters acted for the defendants in these proceedings.
The claims were brought by over 1,500 Brazilian orange farmers in September and November 2019, in respect of an alleged cartel in the market for the purchase of oranges for the production of orange juice in Brazil between 1999 and 2006. The defendants were directors and shareholders of Sucocítrico Cutrale Ltda, a Brazilian producer of orange juice concentrate.
Brazil’s competition authority, the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (“CADE”) (formerly the Secretaria de Direito Econômico (the “SDE”)), had investigated suspected anticompetitive conduct in the citrus industry from 1995 to 2018. The investigation culminated in CADE’s Final Decision in February 2018, closing the investigation on the basis that the defendants had complied with cease-and-desist agreements (“TCCs”) which they had entered into with CADE in 2016. The English proceedings were issued shortly after the closure of CADE’s investigation.
It was common ground that Article 206(3)(v) of the Brazilian Civil Code meant that the applicable limitation period was three years. The dispute between the parties was, instead, focussed on when that limitation period had started to run.
Brazilian law provided for different start dates for:
There was, accordingly, a dispute between the parties as to whether CADE’s Final Decision had been a condemnatory one and, if not, when the claimants had the necessary knowledge to bring the claims.
The claimants’ primary case was that their claim was not time barred because CADE’s Final Decision and the 2016 TCCs amounted to condemnatory findings of cartel conduct, such that their claims could be characterised as follow-on and benefit from a later limitation start date.
The English court rejected that argument. On the facts, neither the TCCs nor the Final Decision – which simply closed the investigation on the basis of compliance with those agreements – contained any admission or finding that a cartel had existed.
In coming to this conclusion, the court had regard to several decisions of Brazil’s highest court, the Superior Court of Justice (the “STJ”) along with other Brazilian courts. The English court remarked that its function, in a case such as this, was to predict the likely decision of a foreign court on the issue that arises. Although Brazil did not have a formal doctrine of precedent, it was probable that Brazilian lower courts would follow the STJ’s decisions because the function of the STJ was to ensure uniformity of legislative interpretation. Accordingly, there was a high hurdle to overcome to persuade the English court that STJ cases had been wrongly decided.
Since the court had held that the claims were stand-alone, the three-year Brazilian limitation period began running when the claimants had the required knowledge necessary to bring the claims.
The claimants’ expert’s view was that time would not have started running until claimants had, or could reasonably have had, unequivocal knowledge of the violation, its authors, and the full extent of their loss. The court rejected that approach. Instead, it held that time ran from the point at which the claimants were aware, or could reasonably have been aware, of the possible existence of the infringement and the possible identity of those responsible.
On that basis, the court held that the claimants had, or could reasonably have acquired, the knowledge necessary to enable time to start running when a formal notice was published was by the SDE in Brazil’s Official Gazette in February 2006 – naming the relevant businesses as persons in respect of whom there were indications of potentially unlawful conduct – was sufficient to start the clock. The English court concluded that the three-year limitation period had expired no later than February 2009, a full decade before the English proceedings were issued. It also observed that the STJ had consistently adopted the same approach as it was doing.
The case underscores that securing English jurisdiction does not insulate claimants from the substantive rules of the applicable foreign law, including its limitation rules. The court’s deference to the STJ’s consistent jurisprudence is a reminder of how difficult it is to persuade an English court to depart from a settled line of foreign authority. And the adoption of an objective knowledge standard carries a practical warning: the limitation clock may start running considerably earlier than claimants expect, triggered not by formal regulatory decisions but by publicly available information such as press reports, official notices, or the launch of an investigation.
More broadly, the Viegas judgment forms part of a growing body of authority highlighting the risks of commencing large-scale foreign law claims in England without first addressing threshold issues with the rigour they deserve. Taken together, the limitation judgment and the earlier successful strike-out application (Viegas and another v Cutrale and another [2024] EWCA Civ 1122) in the same proceedings send a clear message: claimants must have a complete and accurate understanding of their claims before issuing proceedings in the English courts. That imperative is heightened in cases with a foreign dimension, where threshold questions, including limitation, standing, and the proper characterisation of claims, must be assessed by reference to the applicable foreign law. The consequences of failing to do so at the outset can be severe, potentially resulting in the outright dismissal of claims and the imposition of substantial adverse costs orders.