Brazil’s top court says X paid pending fines to wrong bank

Brazil’s Supreme Court said on Friday that lawyers representing social media platform X did not pay pending fines to the right bank, postponing its decision on whether to allow the tech firm to resume services in Brazil.

Earlier in the day, Elon Musk-owned X filed a fresh request to have its services restored in the country, saying it had paid all pending fines.

In Friday’s decision, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes requested the payment to be transferred to the right bank.

He also determined that once fines are sorted out, Brazil’s prosecutor general give his opinion on the recent requests made by X’s legal team in Brazil, which has been seeking to have the platform restored in the country.

X has been suspended since late August in Brazil, one of its largest and most coveted markets, after not complying with court orders related to hate speech moderation and failing to name a legal representative in the country, as required by law.

After reversing course and following the top court’s orders in recent weeks, including blocking some accounts under investigation, the company asked the court on Sept. 26 to allow it to resume service in Brazil.

Moraes, however, ruled at the time the platform still needed to pay just over US$5 million in pending fines before the suspension was lifted.

On Friday, X’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that the tech firm had paid 28.6 million reais (US$5.24 million) in fines, according to a document seen by Reuters.

(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo Editing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)