Fraud committed against creditors: notion of fraud in general. Historical summary and issues on fraud against creditors. Paulian action

Abstract

This paper does not aim to bring definitive answers to fraud against creditors, nor does it carry out in-depth studies on the term fraud – neither in Brazilian Law nor in Comparative Law. There is also no intention to study the applicable hermeneutics, interpretation and exegesis. Despite this, some concepts of fraud will be analyzed, both in the primitive and contemporary scope of law. Nuances about the concept and its problems are important matters which must be thought and to the understanding of the sentence “fraud against creditors”. The “Paulian Action”, contained in the title of this article, is also important to understand the objectives of the study. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) articulated an interesting concept of rights and duties, in the context of fraud: “While wrong may be done, then, in either of two ways, that is, by force or by fraud, both are bestial: fraud seems to belong to the cunning fox, force to the lion; both are wholly unworthy of man, but fraud is the more contemptible. But of all forms of injustice, none is more flagrant than that of the hypocrite who, at the very moment when he is most false, makes it his business to appear virtuous”.