Law No. 13,129/2015, by amending the Brazilian Arbitration Act (Law No. 9,307/1996), marked a turning point: it expressly consolidated the possibility for the Public Administration, both direct and indirect, to resort to arbitration to resolve disputes involving disposable patrimonial rights. In doing so, it overcame the former controversy surrounding the State’s subjective arbitrability and opened the door to arbitration clauses and arbitration agreements in public contracts.
With this development, new challenges emerged. While confidentiality is usually the rule in the private sector, the Public Administration must observe the principle of publicity (Article 37 of the Federal Constitution). For this reason, the Arbitration Act itself made it clear that public arbitration must comply with this principle (Article 2, paragraph 3). Regulations such as ANTT Resolution No. 5,960/2022 have further detailed how to strike a balance between transparency and confidentiality in specific situations.
This framework evolved even further with the Public Procurement and Administrative Contracts Law (Law No. 14,133/2021), which reinforced arbitration as an appropriate means of dispute resolution in the public sector. The impact is already reflected in the numbers: according to the study “Arbitration in Numbers” (Selma Lemes, 2024), nearly 30% of the total value of incoming arbitrations in the period stems from disputes involving state-owned or public entities. Concrete cases illustrate this expansion: the Attorney General’s Office (AGU/PGF) currently handles a significant number of arbitrations, and the State of São Paulo has created a specialized unit to deal with the matter.
Even so, it is important to highlight the limits of this mechanism: only disposable patrimonial rights may be submitted to arbitration, which requires careful attention when defining what is effectively arbitrable in public contracts. Issues such as economic-financial rebalancing, contractual default, and indemnification are among the most recurrent.
Arbitration involving the public sector is thus consolidating itself as an instrument of efficiency and legal certainty, provided that it is guided by constitutional and statutory parameters.
BRAGA, Lívia Gervásio. A consolidação da arbitragem no setor público: avanços e desafios. Jota, 2025. Disponível em:https://www.jota.info/opiniao-e-analise/colunas/advogadas-publicas-em-debate/a-consolidacao-da-arbitragem-no-setor-publico-avancos-e-desafios. Acesso em: 02, out. 2025.
CRUZ, Erick Luiz Fernandes da. Transparência x confidencialidade: equilíbrio na arbitragem com a administração pública. Conjur, 2024. Disponível em: https://www.conjur.com.br/2024-abr-29/transparencia-versus-confidencialidade-o-equilibrio-na-arbitragem-com-a-administracao-publica/. Acesso em: 02, out. 2025.
LEMES, Selma (Coord.). Arbitragem em Números: Pesquisa 2022/2023. Canal Arbitragem. São Paulo, 2024. Disponível em: https://canalarbitragem.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Arbitragem-em-Numeros-2024.pdf. Acesso em: 02 out. 2025.
OLIVEIRA, Rafael Carvalho Rezende; SOUZA, Lucas Carvalho de. Regulamentações da arbitragem pela Administração Pública em âmbito infranacional: um estudo crítico e comparativo. Revista Brasileira de Alternative Dispute Resolution – RBADR, Belo Horizonte, ano 04, n. 07, p. 179-200, jan./jun. 2022.
ROCHA, Oscar César de Jesus. Arbitragem na administração pública: um olhar sobre as concessões rodoviárias federais. 2023. Monografia (Especialização em Controle da Desestatização e da Regulação) – Instituto Serzedello Corrêa, Escola Superior do Tribunal de Contas da União, Brasília, DF.
