Covid-19: Brazilian National Waterway Transport Agency (ANTAQ) publishes a note with guidelines regarding the performance of contracts in the context of the pandemic
Brazilian National Waterway Transport Agency (ANTAQ) published, on April 28th, 2020, an official note to its users with information and guidelines about the impacts caused to the services of waterway transport, considered as necessary during this emergency period of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the respective note, ANTAQ clarifies that it is under their attention the reduction of port tracking of certain cargo types, reason why such services providers may not be able to perform their contracts in full.
In this sense, ANTAQ released some comments regarding:
- the charge of container demurrage, acting in order to avoid any abusive practice;
- the contractual obligation to make investments in leases in order to assess the viability and preservation of these contracts;
- the possibility of making more flexible the contractual requirements for the payment of certain obligations not achieved;
- certain situations brought to its attention that deal with the flexible payment of grant values for reasons arising out of Covid-19; and
- its supervisory competence to maintain the suspension of deadlines in sanctioning proceedings, thus taking into effect the Provisional Measure nº 928/20 - which deals with measures to face the public health emergency in Brazil -, as well as assessing possible modulation of fiscal actions in specific matters.
The Maritime team is available in case of doubts.