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Another week, another TelexFree appeal rejected by the courts of Brazil.

Shortly after TelexFree’s twelfth appeal was denied in the Acre Superior Court in late August, TelexFree rushed off to the Supreme Court to file for a Preventative Action preliminary injunction against the existing Acre Public Prosecutor’s injunction against the company.

Having initially failed to convince a single Judge in Brazil that they weren’t a Ponzi scheme, of late TelexFree has attempted to have the injunction lifted on legal technicalities. An effort that has proved as in effective as arguing their case on the merits of the TelexFree business model.

Their latest attempt, filed in the Supreme Court somewhere between the 28th and 30th of August, saw the company demand the Acre injunction be lifted on the grounds that the company “would never be succesful” obtaining an appeal from the lower courts.

With no legal precedent or basis to argue their appeal on, not surprisingly the Judge hearing the case was quick to deny it.

Judge Barroso noted that, as per Supreme Court precedent, it was only after a case had been concluded that an “extraordinary appeal” could be filed. And even then, it had to be filed in the court that the initial injunction was granted in.

Barroso also noted that it was “unacceptable” to file an extraordinary appeal for the purposes of obtaining an injunction against a judgement made on the basis of “precautionary measures”, which the Acre injunction was made on.

Noting that the only argument TelexFree had presented was that they “would never be successful” winning an extraordinary appeal in Acre, Barroso denied the appeal.

In addition to losing their thirteenth filed appeal against the Acre injunction, TelexFree was also dealt another blow late last week when the Criminal Chamber Court of Acre lifted the injunction that was suspending criminal investigation of the company.

Previously Judge Fransico Djalma had granted an injunction, however this time around three Judges ruled on the injunction with Eva Evangelista and Samoel Evangelista voting against Djalma (who maintained his vote in favour of the injunction).

As such, police in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo are now free to resume the criminal investigation against TelexFree. In addition to the re-opening of the Espírito Santo case, the Judges also acknowledged that there was nothing stopping police in other states from opening their own criminal investigations.

This was of particular significance as TelexFree affiliates are only able to be interrogated by local police in connection to a criminal investigation. Police in Espírito Santo would therefore only be able to interrogate TelexFree affiliates based out of Espírito Santo. If other states were to open their own criminal investigations, law enforcement would have access to a much larger affiliate-base to question as required.

I’m currently unaware of any additional criminal investigations having been opened but with the week just starting, I’m sure we’ll hear of any beginning during the week.

Meanwhile there’s been no word on the what the gameplan now is for TelexFree or whether or not they’re going to file a fourteenth injunction. With the company admitting it has zero chance of convincing Judges in Acre that it’s not a Ponzi scheme and the Supreme Court throwing them out, filing more appeals would appear to be a waste of time.

One would have thought that was painfully obvious after the first few appeals were denied, but here we are…