Americanas: Former director says that accusation ‘contains untruth’ – 06/14/2023 – Market

The defense of the former director of Americanas José Timotheo de Barros says that the document released by the company this Tuesday (13) admitting accounting fraud “contains untruths” and that the company will have to prove the accusations made against the previous management.

So far, it is the only defense to speak out on the accusations, which involve all former directors who were removed in February, 23 days after the disclosure of the accounting scandal, in addition to Miguel Gutierrez, who for 20 years commanded one of the largest retailers in the country.

In a note, Barros’s defense accuses the company of trying to disrupt the investigations by disclosing excerpts from part of the report prepared by the company’s lawyers, and not by the independent committee created to investigate the accounting scandal that led the company to judicial recovery.

“The material fact informed to the market on yesterday’s date [terça, 13] contains untruths and makes accusations that will need to be proven”, says the text, sent by lawyer Cleinado Simões, who says he will make formal requests to verify the company’s statements.

“On the same day, based on a document partially prepared to disturb the investigations, excerpts of what would be part of an investigation report made by the company’s lawyers (not by the independent committee) were shown in a frivolous way in a commission of the National Congress, presenting mere opinions of suspicions as truths.”

Barros was responsible for physical stores, logistics and technology and had been at Americanas since 1996. Like the other management executives at the retailer, he had been away from the company since February 3, but announced his resignation on May 1.

Like the other executives, he was accused by the company’s current management of defrauding the financial statements to improve the balance sheet, by accounting for non-existent discounts on the purchase of products.

The accusation, according to the company, is the result of a report not yet audited by hired lawyers. According to them, administrators had to resort to loans without the board’s knowledge to pay suppliers, increasing the company’s liabilities.

The alleged fraud would have resulted in a positive impact of BRL 25.3 billion on the company’s balance sheets, according to a statement released this Wednesday (14).

Among lawyers accompanying the case, the assessment is that the company will be taken to court to prove the accusations, since it anticipated the opinion of the independent committee and the investigations of bodies such as the CVM (Comissão de Valores Mobiliários).

The CVM has a series of processes on the case, one of them investigating the company’s financial statements. In others, it investigates compliance with rules for disclosing information and the use of privileged information in the sale of shares by management.

So far, however, only Sergio Rial, who was responsible for bringing the accounting scandal to the public, is a defendant, in an investigation into how the announcement was made. At CVM, penalties range from a warning to fines and disqualification from holding a position in a publicly-held company.

Lawyer Romeu Amaral, who is a founding partner of Amaral Lewandowski Advogados and a professor at Insper, says that, in addition to administrative proceedings at the CVM, investigations into accounting fraud can result in lawsuits in the civil and criminal spheres.

In the civil sphere, companies or shareholders can claim compensation for damages caused by acting “with negligence or intent” or “in violation of the law or the bylaws”. Controlling shareholders, if they have a stake, can also be sued for failing to fulfill their duties and responsibilities.

In the criminal sphere, the administrator who, in a report, balance sheet or other documents, “makes a false statement about the economic conditions of the company, or fraudulently conceals, in whole or in part, a fact related to them is subject to a penalty of one to four years of imprisonment. relative”.

The report made contact with the defenses of Gutierrez and Márcio Meirelles, who was responsible for the digital, consumer and marketing areas, but they have not yet commented on the accusations.