Americanas: What the CPI and the police can do with gangs – 06/13/2023 – Vinicius Torres Freire

Lawyers and the new management of Americanas accused directors and other executives of the company until 2022 of conspiracy, roughly speaking. The retailer’s leadership would invent discounts on the purchase of goods, hide debts, falsify the calculation of relative indebtedness, forge documents and publish false numbers of results, a lie that would have exceeded BRL 2.4 billion in 2021, for example, in profit case.

The trick would have had the consent of external auditors and even banks. The board of directors and the said reference shareholders, Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira are not involved in the roll according to this partial explanation and, it should be noted, not yet audited.

This is the version of the company’s current management, presented this Tuesday (13) in official documents and, in part, to the CPI of Americanas, in the Chamber, by the current CEO of the company, Leonardo Coelho Pereira.

The story is still very confusing even for those who understand balance sheets and, more specifically, retailers’ balance sheets. There is no version of the defense of the accused, thrown to the beasts, just like that.

Furthermore, it is not even the story that is being brought up by an independent investigative committee hired by the board of directors. Perhaps more importantly, it is not a conclusive story and derived from a thorough investigation by the police, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Ministry and the CPI of the Chamber. If the job is well done, in particular by a CPI that makes a demagogic and incompetent show against “billionaires”, even better.

That’s not to say that billionaires shouldn’t get into the dance or even jail, obviously. But it is necessary to use the wide official resources of investigation in order to produce substantiated evidence, in order to avoid failures in the process, facilities for the chicanery of the defense of possible criminals and even future disconvictions, so to speak.

It should be obvious. However, it is possible to count on the fingers how many are convicted of financial crimes. Jail, not infrequently without due process, in fact, is often reserved for poor people and blacks who steal groceries, sometimes just to eat, or kids caught with a bundle of marijuana. Time and again, the arrest is made with a rope around the neck or in a current version of the macaw stick.

Are we going to see a billionaire fraudster’s house, market and workers? Close to the Americanas fraud, the money found in the backseats, suitcases and safes of politicians and their friends turns into loose change. In terms of values, even the public theft of Petrobras pales in comparison to the private theft of Americanas.

In addition to clarifying the specific case, all these investigations should serve to establish what kind of mumunha can be created in the manufacture of swings, not just this retailer in the mud. Shareholders, suppliers and workers of how many more companies are being defrauded, to a greater or lesser extent? Is there a modus operandi? Is there a law to change? Feathers to raise?

At least according to what Americanas says “under new management”, executives, auditors and financial institutions can make up everything from the texts and wording of balance sheets to the balance sheet itself, not to mention mere notes on commercial operations. In some situations caught, an errata is published and the film is burned, but “let’s go ahead”, “business as usual”.

The fact on screen is the case of Americanas. If the investigations go deep into this story, in a competent way, it would already be a step forward. But researchers can go further and clarify the still ineffable world of balance sheets.

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