Recently the National Department for Business Registration and Integration (DREI) issued its Normative Instruction number 66, changing, in the company registration manuals issued by the Brazilian Boards of Trade, the provisions referring to the opening, alteration, transfer, and extinction of branches in states different from the state where the company is headquartered, aiming to standardize and simplify company registration in the country.
The normative instruction determines that the procedures for the incorporation, modification, and extinction of branches located in states different from the state where the company is headquartered must be done only at the Board of Trade in the state of the head office, which is responsible for sending the registration data to the Boards of Trade responsible for registering the branches, for storage.
Another relevant change refers to the possibility of automatically extending the protection and exclusivity of the corporate name of the head office to the branches, if proof of the feasibility processes duly completed before the Commercial Boards of the branches are presented to the Commercial Board of the head office. If the feasibility of the branches has not been previously carried out, it will be necessary to file with the Board of Trade in the state of the branches the document of the change of company name registered with the Board of Trade in the head office, so that the company name can also be changed in the Boards of Trade in the states of the branches.
In general, Normative Instruction No. 66 simplifies and reduces the bureaucracy of the processes of opening, changing, transferring, and closing a branch in another state, historically considered to be excessively bureaucratic and slow. With the adoption of electronic systems by most of the Brazilian Boards of Trade, this normative instruction is in line with the efforts of the Brazilian government’s current economic team to facilitate procedures and considerably reduce the costs of doing business in the country.