In August 2023, Larissa Manoela gave an interview to Fantástico that sparked a serious legal debate. The actress, then 22 years old, revealed that she only received an allowance from her parents, needed permission to buy airline tickets, and discovered that in one of the companies she opened to manage her career, which began at age four, she only held 2% of the company's shares. The other 98% belonged to her parents. 

In another company, even though she was the sole shareholder, her parents were appointed administrators with broad powers to perform any actions without her authorization.

The case exposed a normative gap in Brazilian law, that is, civil legislation, which was built for a reality in which children and adolescents rarely accumulated significant assets, and the mechanisms for controlling parental authority over children's assets proved insufficient for the contemporary world, in which two-year-old digital influencers already accumulate millions in advertising revenue.

What does the law say today, and why is it not enough?

The current Civil Code establishes that parents, in exercising parental authority, administer and enjoy the assets of their children under the age of eighteen. 

The logic behind the law is that children are developing individuals, and parental management of their assets serves their best interests. 

The problem is that the Code was designed for situations where children's assets originated from inheritances, donations, or pensions, and the only control mechanism available is the appointment of a special guardian by the judge when there is a conflict of interest between parents and children.

The regulatory framework, however, does not take into account the reality of a child who has been working professionally since the age of four, generating millions in revenue and depending entirely on their parents to access the money they themselves earned. 

What does the Larissa Manoela Bill propose?

Bill 3.914/2023, approved by the Chamber of Deputies in March 2025 and currently under review in the Senate, proposes changes to both the Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA) and the Civil Code. 

In the ECA (Brazilian Statute for Children and Adolescents), the main innovation is the creation of article 69-A, which expressly recognizes the right of children and adolescents to protection against abusive conduct by those who hold management power over their assets. 

The regulation defines abusive conduct as the indiscriminate use of resources, misappropriation, and the unjustified denial of access by the child to the funds obtained. The mandatory biennial accounting by parents is another relevant innovation. 

Currently, there is no such explicit obligation, and the demand for accountability depends on judicial initiative. The proposal stipulates that parents have a duty to provide accounts periodically, and not only when abuse has already been identified. 

Furthermore, when abusive conduct is identified, the judge may restrict parental access to funds, establish a special reserve in favor of the child, or order periodic audits of the accounts.

In the Civil Code, the bill expands the restrictions on the exercise of parental authority. 

In addition to real estate, which was already protected, judicial authorization will now be required for the sale or encumbrance of shares and holdings in business entities, precious objects, and securities. 

Parents are also prohibited from waiving rights held by their children without such authorization. When parental administration jeopardizes the child's assets, the judge may adopt security and preservation measures, including requiring a bond or guarantee.

The bill also stipulates that, upon termination of parental authority, children may demand an accounting of the administration exercised by their parents, with the parents being held civilly liable for fraud or negligence. 

The proposed timeframe, however, is only two years after the cessation of civil incapacity, which legal scholars already consider far too short for family relationships of such emotional complexity. 

Larissa Manoela's own case shows that it took the artist years after reaching adulthood to understand and publicly acknowledge what had happened. This is because requiring someone between sixteen and twenty years old to file a lawsuit against their own parents within two years ignores the emotional and psychological dimension of these relationships. 

In this case, it would make more sense to maintain the general ten-year statute of limitations, which was already in effect even before the bill.

What does Bill 4/2025 add?

Bill 4/2025, which proposes a broad reform of the Civil Code, moves in the same direction and, in some aspects, offers more sophisticated solutions. 

The proposal to allow the appointment of a professional administrator when parental management puts the child's assets at risk, for example, is more effective than simply requiring a security deposit, which presupposes that the parents have the resources to provide it. 

Expanding the list of those entitled to request protective measures, including any relative of the child, is also an improvement over the final version of the Larissa Manoela Bill, which restricted this right to the child and the Public Prosecutor's Office.

Both projects, however, share a structural limitation, because they act predominantly in a repressive manner, establishing consequences for abuse that has already been identified, but without creating robust preventive mechanisms. 

The French experience, which mandates the freezing of 90% of the assets earned by child digital influencers until they reach adulthood, offers a more protective alternative that Brazilian projects chose not to adopt. 

In the French model, parents manage only the remaining 10% freely; the bulk of the assets remain untouched until the child can decide for themselves what to do with it. 

Why does this topic matter beyond the famous case?

It would be a mistake to treat the Larissa Manoela Bill as legislation aimed exclusively at celebrities. 

Viih Tube's two-year-old daughter has already accumulated over one million reais in her bank account, from advertisements placed on her mother's profile. 

Child athletes, child actors, child YouTubers , and young digital influencers are a growing reality, and the issue of parental asset management will frequently appear in law firms and family courts in the coming years.

For lawyers specializing in family law, the approval of the bill, when it occurs, will create a specific field of practice in actions for rendering accounts against parents, requests for protective measures for the assets of minors, annulment of management acts that exceed the limits of parental authority, and civil liability of parents for mismanagement. 

For those working in the business field, the corporate implications are equally relevant, since the validity of holding structures involving shares held by minors, acts that depend on judicial authorization, and the limits of parental powers as administrators of legal entities formed with their children's assets are issues that will require specialized advice.

The subject matter therefore requires training that combines civil law, family law, procedural law, and notions of business law in an integrated manner.

Postgraduate programs in Civil Procedural Law and in Private and Business Law Advocacy at IDP

IDP offers two postgraduate programs directly connected to this field. 

The postgraduate course in Civil Procedural Law trains professionals to handle the legal actions and measures that this new legislative scenario will demand: rendering of accounts, urgent relief, protective measures, and procedural mechanisms for controlling parental authority. 

The postgraduate degree in Private and Business Law, in turn, prepares students for advisory and litigation work involving family law, contracts, corporate structures, and estate planning—precisely the set of knowledge that the Larissa Manoela case revealed to be indispensable.

Both programs are 100% online and live, held every two weeks, with a high-level faculty and access to the three largest virtual legal libraries in Brazil. 

For those who want to be prepared when this field becomes established in forensic practice, the time to specialize is before the demand arrives, not after it has already passed.