El ESTABLECIMIENTO VIRTUAL Y SU CONDICIÓN DE ESTABLECIMIENTO EMPRESARIAL SECUNDARIO (FILIAL)

Abstract

This study examines the possibility of admitting that an electronic web site has the same legal nature as that of a physical store. In the course of developing the study, the requirement to register at the Trade Board or Corporation Registry, in the Corporate Taxpayer’s Registry (CNPJ), and with the State and Municipal Internal Revenue are reviewed, in accordance with the type of activity, as a condition for exercising economic activity, which necessarily presupposes information from the main office of the entrepreneur, the business company, simple corporation, or limited liability company. Based on this requirement, a review is made as to whether the electronic web site could be considered as a standalone or treated merely as an extension of the physical store. A brief overview is given with regard to the Internet, e-commerce, and web sites, which is presented as a synthetic reference to the history of the rise of the Internet, the advantages and disadvantages of e-commerce, and how the Internet and electronic web sites work. The study addresses the concept and legal nature of the store, with a brief statement about the elements that make up its composition, and the possibility of fitting electronic sites into the design of a store is examined, as provided for in Art. 1.142 of the 2002 Civil Code. The work draws from methodological-legal-sociological approaches, as it examines the extent to which behavioural change takes place whenever business is conducted over the Internet and how this has influenced the store’s design. This methodology has been chosen because the study intends to understand the legal phenomenon of business being transacted in the virtual environment, assuming that the law as capable of adapting to these changes. Dogmatics is also present as the study is 358 Panorama of Brazilian Law. Vol 2, No 2 (2014)