By Brazil Stock Guide – A São Paulo court rejected Enel São Paulo’s claim that an extratropical cyclone qualified as force majeure and exempted the utility from responsibility for power failures in December 2025. The outage affected about 2.2 million customer units from Dec. 10 through Dec. 12, according to a lawsuit filed by state prosecutors and public defenders.
Judge Gisele Rocha of the São Paulo State Court’s 31st Civil Division issued the decision on Friday, Sept. 4. It was published in the court journal on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
“The characterization of force majeure, for the purpose of excluding the civil liability of a public-service concessionaire, requires not only the occurrence of an external and unforeseeable event, but also proof that the concessionaire adopted all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or mitigate the event’s effects, which is not established in this case,” Rocha said in the ruling.
Regulator Found Operational Shortcomings
The court based its decision on a technical assessment by Brazil’s electricity regulator, known as Aneel. The analysis identified structural and operational deficiencies in Enel’s response to the extreme weather.
The problems included a low rate of successful resolutions outside business hours, a high number of unproductive service calls, a shortage of vehicles equipped to repair the power grid, inadequate staffing schedules and failures in the management of available resources.
The findings indicated that the severity of the cyclone alone didn’t explain the disruption and that the company hadn’t demonstrated it took all reasonable steps to contain the damage.
Court Rejects Request for Expert Review
Rocha also denied Enel’s request for an additional expert examination, saying the relevant facts had already been documented through official weather data, operating reports and Aneel’s technical analysis.
“In this context, the expert examination requested by the defendant is unnecessary because it concerns facts already extensively documented in the case through official meteorological data, operational reports and a technical assessment produced by the competent regulatory authority,” the judge said.
The lawsuit was brought by the São Paulo State Public Prosecutor’s Office and the state public defender’s office.
Enel Defends Emergency Response
Enel said its response was consistent with the exceptional scale of the storm that began on Dec. 10, 2025. The utility said strong and prolonged winds, which continued for more than two days, were the main cause of the damage.
“The main impact factor was the strong and prolonged winds, which lasted for more than two consecutive days. Even in this scenario, the company responded faster than during the events of November 2023 and October 2024: within nine hours, it restored power to 2.5 million customer units. Within 24 hours, 80% of affected customers, or about 3.4 million, had their service restored,” Enel said.
The company also said its emergency performance was comparable with that of other major Brazilian electricity distributors facing severe weather of a similar magnitude.
“Official data from Aneel itself show that Enel SP’s performance in emergency situations is consistent with that of other major distributors in the country when exposed to weather events of similar magnitude,” the company said. “The company also reiterates that it has shown consistent improvement in emergency-service indicators over the past three years, including average response times and prolonged interruptions, which are better than the national average for major distributors.”
Leave a Reply