Americanas: Justice grants expertise to investigate fraud – 01/26/2023 – Market

The Justice of São Paulo accepted Bradesco’s request and authorized an expert examination at Americanas as a way of obtaining evidence for the bank to be able to certify whether there was fraud in the management of the retail giant, which entered into judicial recovery with a debt of R$ 43 billion . The decision can be appealed.

In the decision, judge Andréa Galhardo Palma, from the 2^The Business Court of the Court of Justice of São Paulo, appoints Ernest & Young to accompany the diligence. Lawyer Patrícia Punder will carry out the investigative expertise.

The team will be able to carry out a search and seizure on Americanas’ computers to obtain all the institutional e-mail boxes of the directors, members of the Board of Directors and the Audit Committee, employees in the accounting and finance area —both current and of those who have held these positions over the last ten years.

Americanas plunged into a crisis after the disclosure of “accounting inconsistencies” of R$ 20 billion.

The banks suspect fraud and have started an offensive that targets the company’s reference shareholders – the trio of billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Beto Sicupira and Marcel Telles. They recently stated that they were unaware of the accounting flaws and said they were victims, like other shareholders and creditors.

The onslaught led by Bradesco also has other evidence production actions filed by Safra and Santander. Both await decision.

This judicial path is possible through the disregard of legal personality — an exceptional mechanism, provided for by law, which consists of ignoring the company’s patrimonial autonomy, in case of abusive or fraudulent conduct, so that its shareholders pay for damages with their own assets.

The offensive was defined by the banks in view of the company’s recent strategy of pointing out the alleged connivance of financial institutions with the case of “accounting pedaling” that are at the root of the retailer’s crisis.