The evidences of spontaneous oxidation of Mn(II) by the dissolved oxygen in azide buffer medium, which is dependent on the N (-)(3)HN (3) concentration, suggested a formation of stable Mn(III) complexes due to marked colour changes. Spectrophotometric studies combined with coulometric generation of Mn(III), in presence of large excess of Mn(II), showed a maximum absorbance peak at 432 nm. The molar absorptivity increases with azide concentration (0.44-3.9 mol 1(-1)) from 3100 to 6300 mol(-1) 1 cm(-1), showing a stepwise complex formation. Potential measurements of the Mn(III) Mn(II) system in several azide aqueous buffers solutions: 1.0 x 10(-2) mol 1(-1) HN(3), (0.50-2.0 mol 1(-1)) N(-)(3) and 5.0 x 10(-2) mol 1(-1) Mn(II) and constant ionic strength 2.0 mol 1(-1), kept with sodium perchlorate, leads to the conditional potential, E(0')x, in several azide concentrations at 25.0 +/- 0.1 degrees C. Considering the overall formation constants of Mn(II) N (-)(3), from former studies, and the potential, E(0')s = 1.063 V versus SCE, for Mn(III) Mn(II) system in non-complexing media, it was possible to calculate the Fronaeus function, F(0)(L), and the following overall formation constants: beta(1) = 1.2 x 10(5) M(-1), beta(2) = 6.0 x 10(8) M(-2), beta(3) = (2.4 +/- 0.7) x 10(11) M(-3), beta(4) = (1.5 +/- 0.5) x 10(11) M(-4) and beta(5) = (9.6 +/- 0.8) x 10(11) M(-5) for the Mn(III) N (-)(3) complexes. These data give important support to understand the importance of Mn(II) and Mn(III) synergistic effect on the analytical method of S(IV) determination based on the Co(II) autoxidation.