From Charles Ponzi to the company avestruz master: the financial pyramid and the concept of collective moral damage in the STJ'S jurisprudence

• Autor(a) principal: Roncador, Sérgio Roberto
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Processus de Estudos de Gestão, Jurídicos e Financeiros (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.processus.com.br/index.php/egjf/article/view/792
• topic: Direito e Economia. Contrato. Pirâmide Financeira. Proteção ao Consumidor; Law and Economics. Contract. Financial pyramid. Consumer protection

The Italian, based in the USA and dead in Brazil, Charles Ponzi (1882-1949) inaugurated the so-called financial pyramids for the modern world. In general, financial pyramids consist of a scheme of financial contracts, usually disguised as purchase and sale contracts, with promises of rapid and very high gains, whose profitability is ensured by the inclusion of new participants, in sequential and constant movement, until the its inevitable exhaustion. From the first case in the USA in the 1920s, to the recent judgment by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), on 05.31.2016, about the company Avestruz Master in Brazil, one can see how much more complex and subtle the practice has become. of this collective fraud, which imposes redoubled attention on the part of the Judiciary, in the search for consumer protection. This article aims to analyze the decision of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), in the aforementioned case of the company Ostrich Master, in a historical and comparative analysis of the creator of this fraud: the Italian Charles Ponzi, regarding the concept of moral owner collective due to consumerist issues.