Americanas: Justice marks testimony from Rial and Gutierrez – 03/20/2023 – Market

The Justice of São Paulo scheduled for April 27 the hearings of the former presidents of Americanas Sergio Rial and Miguel Gutierrez, as well as the former financial director André Covre, accepting Bradesco’s request, as decided this Monday (20).

Judge Andréa Galhardo Palma, from the 2nd Court of Business Competence and Disputes Related to Arbitration, scheduled the hearings for 2:30 pm, in a court in the Liberdade district.

The judge’s argument is that the measure is necessary, given the “resistance of the American defendants in spontaneously enabling access to the documentation delimited” in previous decisions and “will facilitate the clarification of the truth of the facts alleged in the complaint, in addition to to direct/delimit with greater efficiency the production of expert evidence previously granted”.

Americanas did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Americanas is in judicial recovery after revealing what it classified as “accounting inconsistencies” in the order of around R$ 20 billion. The incident was disclosed by the company in mid-January, along with the resignations of Rial, then president, and Covre, the chief financial officer at the time. Both had assumed the positions at the beginning of the same month. Previously, it had been headed by Gutierrez for nearly two decades.

The judge also denied a second request by Bradesco for immediate continuation of expertise at Americanas, as the case awaits a decision at the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

“Despite the arguments of the plaintiff, the decision that determined that, for the time being, the analysis of the request for reconsideration of the STF’s monocratic decision must be maintained”, she wrote in the decision.