Native sources and comparative resources: unjustified enrichment in Brazil after the 2002 Civil Code

Abstract

When the 2002 Civil Code introduced a new (and more systematic) legislative treatment of unjustified enrichment in Brazilian Law, the new legislation encountered a highly permeable judicial and doctrinal environment to the influence of comparative law. This article aims at identifying the changes in the Brazilian law of unjustified enrichment that resulted from the confluence of the new legislation and the open environment in the first decade after the Code came into force. The discussion of specific developments is structured around the traditional categories in which Brazilian legal writers break down the enrichment claim and the corresponding rights.