Stake’s Brazil comeback blocked again after TRF-3 overturns injunction

Stake has been blocked from operating in Brazil again after the president of the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region (TRF-3) suspended a lower-court injunction that had kept the bookmaker live until 25 October. For PSPs and acquirers watching Brazil, the point is simple: judicial breathing room can disappear overnight, and the payment stack has to follow the regulatory stack.

1. The action on Friday by Judge Luis Antonio Johonsom di Salvo came in response to a request from the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) and overturned a preliminary injunction granted last Thursday by Federal Judge Cristiane Farias Rodrigues dos Santos. That earlier ruling had allowed Stake to keep operating until late October.
2. With the TRF-3 suspension in place, Stake’s betting operation is once again blocked in Brazil. The court said the authorisation created inequality in the application of the rules and could encourage other companies to seek similar decisions, with the ruling stating: “In this case, I consider the evidence of serious harm to administrative public order to be sufficiently established.”
3. The AGU argued that the injunction favoured only Stake over other betting companies, giving it an unfair competitive advantage. Judge Johonsom di Salvo accepted that argument and said keeping the authorisation in place created regulatory asymmetry that could compromise the uniform application of public policy.
4. Stake had asked to keep operating until 31 December 2029, the expiry date of its initial licence, but the 9th Federal Civil Court of São Paulo denied that part of the request. The partial injunction it received on Thursday was therefore narrow from the start; the TRF-3 decision removed even that temporary window.
5. The suspension remains valid until the definitive end of the action or until a new decision by the court’s presidency. In practice, that means federal agencies can now move forward with the restriction and blocking measures set out in the provisional measure announced by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva late last month.

The ruling does not decide the merits of the case, and it does not declare the provisional measure constitutional or unconstitutional. That question is still being challenged before the Supreme Federal Court by two of Brazil’s major gambling trade bodies.