On February, 5th, CBRE filed a voluminous petition with the courts following the publication of a well sourced article about CBRE’s unsavory marketing practices.  The petition, filed by the law firm HRSA on behalf of CBRE, claimed, among other things, that the article was defamatory.  On February 6^th, the court, concluded that there was no evidence to suggest SiiLA’s publication of the material had violated any laws.  In the decision, the judge writes, “The Superior Courts have a clear position that the removal of journalistic material, as a rule, violates the freedom of expression...”        

On February 15th the court forcefully rejected CBRE’s appeal of the decision with the judge writing, “…there is no omission, obscurity or contradiction of the court’s decision. The decision adequately examined the matter and fully appreciated the questions that were presented.”  

Asked for his reaction, SiiLA CEO Giancarlo Nicastro said, “These attempts at legal intimidation are unfortunate and exactly consistent with the strong-arm tactics we wrote about in the article published on January 31st. We appreciate the outpouring of support from so many of our friends and colleagues in the market. As always, we at SiiLA will continue with our independent and unbaised coverage of Brazil’s commercial real estate industry”.