Post by account_disabled on Mar 11, 2024 21:31:27 GMT -6
In incorporation, one or more companies are absorbed by another, which succeeds them in all rights and obligations, in accordance with articles
Based on this understanding, the 9th Chamber of Private Law of the São Paulo Court of Justice ordered Unileverprev, Unilever's supplementary pension company, to maintain the conditions of the original health plan contract of a retired employee, in addition to returning the amounts he unduly paid for medical treatments.
The author was an employee of the company Refinações de Milho Brasil (RMB), contributing financially so that, upon his retirement, he could continue to benefit from the medical plan contracted for retirees. He alleged that Unilever, after incorporating RMB, changed the conditions of the contract and drastically reduced his rights, mainly in relation to the health plan model.
Unilever, in turn, stated that it did Portugal Mobile Number List not breach any obligation and that there was no commitment to provide the author with full, lifetime funding for a health plan. However, in the first instance, the decision was in favor of the retired employee. The understanding was that Unilever, in fact, changed the conditions of the plan acquired by the author from RMB, but without consulting him.
Unilever appealed and insisted on the argument that it had no obligation to fully fund the plan. The TJ-SP, however, upheld the sentence in full and rejected the appeal. For the rapporteur, judge Galdino Toledo Júnior, the author proved the existence of the contract, signed in the 90s, before the acquisition of RMB by Unilever, as well as the obligation assumed by the employer RMB to bear the costs of maintaining the plan after its retirement.
"By incorporating the plaintiff's former employer, the defendants succeeded the merged company with regard to the obligations previously assumed by it. Therefore, the contractual link that obliges the parties remains configured, producing the expected effects. On the other hand, one of the parties cannot contracting parties modify the object of the contract, without the consent of the other, under penalty of violating the principles of obligatory contracts and objective good faith, essential to legal certainty", says the ruling, citing an excerpt from the first degree sentence.
Therefore, stated the rapporteur, it is the defendants' obligation to maintain the plaintiff and dependents under the same conditions that, as a retiree, he could enjoy before the unilaterally imposed change, "as well as refund the amounts unduly paid by the plan, observing the three-year prescription, as determined in the decisum, to be determined in the settlement of the judgment". The decision was unanimous.