Courts of Auditors have been extending joint and several liability between construction companies and supervising firms without a legal basis. This article discusses the legal limits of such liability.

The execution of public works involves multiple players, since the complexity of the activity often requires the Public Administration to hire not only a construction company responsible for the physical execution of the project, but also companies engaged in ancillary roles, such as management, inspection or supervision of the services. 

In this scenario, the failure of a project, the occurrence of construction defects and the identification of irregularities in contract performance have often led to the imposition of joint and several liability among these players in the external oversight carried out by the Courts of Auditors, which prompts reflection on whether such joint liability exists and what its limits may be.

First, it should be recalled that, under Brazilian law, joint and several liability is not presumed; it arises exclusively from the law or from the will of the parties, under art. 265 of the Civil Code. Put more clearly, there is no express legal provision in the Brazilian legal system that automatically and indiscriminately establishes joint and several liability between the construction company and the companies hired to manage, inspect or supervise public works.

Even so, the Courts of Auditors often base such liability on provisions of their organic laws that authorize the imposition of joint and several liability on parties who contributed to damage to the public treasury¹, a measure that is not free from serious criticism, since these rules do not — and could not — create new cases of joint liability. Their legal scope is different: they merely authorize the Court to recognize and declare situations of joint and several liability already provided for in the legal system, provided that the legal requirements are met.

In other words, when organic legislation empowers the Court to establish joint and several liability, it does not grant it normative power to innovate in the legal system, but only to identify, in the specific case, situations in which joint liability arises from the applicable law. It is in this sense that one could consider, for example, the application of art. 73 of Law 14,133/21, when a concurrence of unlawful conduct is actually established under the law, rather than the creation of a non-existent joint liability between parties with different roles².

Decision-making practice, however, shows that this distinction is not always observed. Take, for example, Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) Judgment 5,246/25, which discussed the joint and several liability of the supervising company for alleged damage resulting from overbilling in the execution of works³. According to the Court, the supervisor allegedly failed in its duty of oversight by stating that there was no economic and financial imbalance to the detriment of the contracting authority and by certifying the services without reservations, even though it had compared the contracted prices with official benchmarks.

In an even more sensitive passage, the reporting justice went so far as to argue that companies responsible for inspecting public works would be subject to a true obligation of result, which would require them to compensate losses arising from services executed with apparent defects or not executed at all, although this understanding was not applied to the specific case because of the prohibition of reformatio in pejus⁴.

Far from being an isolated position, the TCU precedent reflects an understanding that recurs in external oversight in general. The Paraná State Court of Auditors, for example, held the contract inspector and the contracted company jointly and severally liable for reimbursing amounts to the municipal treasury due to failures in inspecting the execution of works⁵. The Rio de Janeiro State Court of Auditors, in turn, held that joint liability would arise from the concurrence of conduct that resulted in the damage, deeming it irrelevant that public officials and private parties acted in different spheres⁶.

Public procurement legislation, however, has always clearly distinguished these responsibilities, making it evident that while the construction company is responsible for the direct execution of the project, bearing the technical and operational risks inherent in the works, management, inspection or supervision companies are responsible for monitoring, verifying and reporting whether execution complies with the contract, the designs and the applicable technical standards, without any transfer of responsibility for the physical execution.

This distinction was already found, albeit indirectly, in art. 70 of Law 8,666/1993, which provided that the contractor would be liable for damages caused directly to the Administration or to third parties as a result of its fault or willful misconduct in performing the contract, and that such liability would not be excluded or reduced by the inspection⁷. By stating that inspection would not remove the contractor’s liability, the provision reinforced, as a logical consequence, the absence of automatic joint liability between those who execute and those who inspect.

The duty to inspect therefore cannot be confused with a duty to achieve a result, since inspection is an obligation of means, not of ends. A failure in inspection may indeed give rise to liability, but such liability is direct, specific and limited, and not joint and several by artificial equivalence to the party executing the works, including the financial terms of that execution.

Along these lines, the classic lesson of Hely Lopes Meirelles states that the manager’s liability is limited to its technical activities in conducting the project, covering its recommendations, verifications and monitoring acts, without extending to those who execute the works. For the author, there is neither identity nor joint liability between the liability of the builder and that of the manager, each answering for its own work, except for the manager’s liability for losses it causes to the project owner through fault, under civil law — that is, in cases of direct liability⁸.

This distinction is essential to understanding the legitimate limits of the Courts of Auditors’ action. Holding the inspector or manager directly liable, when a serious failure in the performance of its duties is proven, is not only legally possible but necessary, since the Administration cannot bear losses arising from poorly performed inspection services. External oversight may, where appropriate, impose liability, including the return of amounts or the application of contractual sanctions, whenever applicable.

Something quite different is imposing joint and several liability between the inspector and the construction company without a specific legal basis, merely because of a generic duty to inspect. This construction goes beyond the limits of the legal system, ignoring the strict legal basis required for joint liability and compromising the necessary individualization of conduct.

In short, the debate is not about whether management, inspection or supervision companies can be held liable, but about the legal limits of such liability, since joint and several liability cannot be built by analogy, presumption or even institutional convenience. Going beyond these limits, even under the pretext of protecting the public treasury, weakens legal certainty in public procurement and undermines the rationality of the oversight system itself.

1. É o caso da Lei Federal nº 8.443/1992 (Lei Orgânica do Tribunal de Contas da União), que possibilita que, no caso do julgamento pela irregularidade das contas, o TCU poderá “fixar” a responsabilidade solidária entre o agente público que praticou o ato irregular e o terceiro que, como contratante ou parte interessada na prática do mesmo ato, de qualquer modo haja concorrido para o cometimento do dano apurado (artigo 16, §2º). Idêntica disposição é encontrada no artigo 33, §2º, da Lei Orgânica do Tribunal de Contas do Estado de São Paulo (Lei Complementar nº 709/1993) e de outras Cortes de Contas Estaduais. ↩︎
2. Trata-se apenas de uma das diversas referências em que a lei traz uma hipótese de responsabilização solidária. Apesar de não tratar do tema discutido neste artigo, a disposição é usada como exemplo de uma situação em que a lei concretamente estabeleceu situação de solidariedade. ↩︎
3. TCU. Acórdão nº 5.246/2025-1ª Câmara. Relator Ministro Benjamin Zymler. Sessão de 29/07/2025. ↩︎
4. Nesse sentido, o relator cita como precedente o Acórdão nº 2.672/2016-Plenário, de relatoria do Ministro Benjamin Zymler, proferido em sessão de 19/10/2016. ↩︎
5. TCEPR. Acórdão nº 1.084/2024-Plenário. Relator Conselheiro Ivens Zschoerper Linhares. Sessão de 29/04/2024. ↩︎
6. TCERJ. Acórdão nº 043632/2025-Plenário. Relator Conselheiro Rodrigo Melo do Nascimento. Sessão de 11/08/2025. ↩︎
7. Cf.: “Art. 70. O contratado é responsável pelos danos causados diretamente à Administração ou a terceiros, decorrentes de sua culpa ou dolo na execução do contrato, não excluindo ou reduzindo essa responsabilidade a fiscalização ou o acompanhamento pelo órgão interessado”. ↩︎
8. Cf.: “Assim sendo, a responsabilidade do gerenciador restringe-se às suas atividades técnicas na condução do empreendimento, incidindo apenas sobre as suas recomendações, propostas, verificações e demais atos de acompanhamento das obras e serviços gerenciados, visando à correta execução dos projetos. É uma responsabilidade técnico-contratual firmada entre o gerenciador e o dono do empreendimento, sem se estender a terceiros, a executores de obras e serviços, a fornecedores de material ou equipamento para as construções. Não há, assim, identidade ou solidariedade alguma entre a responsabilidade dos construtores e a do gerenciador visto que cada um atua em área própria, como profissional ou empresa independente, respondendo cada qual pelo seu trabalho. Mas se os erros ou falhas no gerenciamento acarretarem prejuízos patrimoniais ao dono do empreendimento, responderá ele pela indenização devida, na forma da lei civil e em razão de sua culpa (Código Civil, arts. 159 e 1.059), como também responderá por faltas ético-profissionais, nos termos da Lei n. 5.194/66 (art. 72) e do Código de Ética Profissional (Resolução CONFEA n. 205/71)” (MEIRELLES, Hely Lopes. Contrato de gerenciamento – novo sistema para realização das obras públicas. Revista de Direito Administrativo. Volume 135. Rio de Janeiro: Jan./Mar, 1979). ↩︎

Originally published by Migalhas (in Portuguese).