BTG Pactual obtains an injunction to block BRL 1.2 billion in Americanas resources

BTG Pactual obtained, on Wednesday afternoon (18), a decision in the Justice of Rio de Janeiro to block approximately R$ 1.2 billion in resources from Americanas. The bank had filed a writ of mandamus on Tuesday (17th) to prevent the emergency relief obtained by the retailer last Friday (13th) from forcing it to revert an early maturity of debts that it had declared a day earlier. This is the first court decision favorable to an Americanas creditor.

Judge Flávio Marcelo de Azevedo Horta Fernandes, who signs the three-page decision, obtained by Broadcast (Grupo Estado’s real-time news system), ordered the blocking of these amounts in Americanas’ BTG account. “I determine the blocking of these amounts in the creditor’s account until the appreciation of the ‘mandamus'”, he decided.

This Tuesday’s decision is an injunction, valid until BTG’s injunction is appreciated.

BTG declared the early maturity of the company’s debts after the Material Fact of last Wednesday (11), which reported an accounting deficit of R$ 20 billion. However, with the TJ-RJ decision, the company informed the bank that the operation would have to be undone.

The fear of André Esteves’ bank is that it will have to return the resources and the retailer will use the money for other purposes. For this reason, he had already made two petitions since the weekend to hunt for the release of the funds, which were denied by the Rio de Janeiro court.

In this Wednesday afternoon decision, the judge also acknowledged that the precautionary measure issued before the request for judicial recovery “aims to safeguard the preservation of business activity”, however, “there is a need for diligence in order to avoid the use of the instrument as a means of defrauding creditors”.

Judge Flávio Marcelo De Azevedo Horta Fernandes also says that it is necessary to “carry out a previous diagnosis of the company, in order to assess the real economic, financial and legal situation before opting for some tool of protection and uplift”.

He also points out that it is necessary to have a resolution on the Recovery Plan, with which the company needs to enter within 30 days.