Americans go to court against electricity and telephone cuts – 01/30/2023 – Market

Americanas asked the court this Monday (30) for protection against cuts in the supply of light, telephony and internet in its stores due to debts with public service concessionaires. In the request, it requests the establishment of a daily fine of R$ 100 thousand.

In the action, the company says that it has already been the target of charges from the concessionaires Enel São Paulo and Light, which serves the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, for invoices that were open before the request for judicial recovery, made on June 19 .

Light appears on the list of creditors presented in the request for judicial recovery with a debt of R$ 919 thousand. To Eletropaulo, now called Enel São Paulo, Americanas owes R$ 442 thousand. Americanas also owes R$ 25,000 to another Enel company, Enel Green Power.

The retailer also points to high debts with telephone companies. With Claro, for example, the debt is R$ 24.1 million. But the list of creditors does not identify whether the value corresponds to the provision of services or the commercial partnership.

The company claims that electricity, telephone and internet services are essential and that, even after filing for judicial recovery, it has still been charged.

In the action, Americanas also asks for protection against eviction actions from its stores due to delays in rent. There is a case running, for example, in Niterói, in the metropolitan region of Rio.

The company is the target of an eviction action filed by Plaza Shopping, managed by the consortium Aliansce Sonae + BR Malls. According to the list of creditors in the judicial recovery process, the debt is R$ 319 thousand.

This Monday, the largest trade union centrals in the country released a joint communiqué defending the direct participation of the Ministry of Labor in the company’s judicial recovery process.

In a meeting with unions, the Minister of Labor, Luiz Marinho, said that “apparently, there may have been corporate irresponsibility”, but stated that “it is fundamental that we manage to preserve the continuity of the economic activity of Lojas Americanas, regardless of who is its controller”.

The company’s main shareholders include billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Sicupira and Marcel Telles, who have already claimed ignorance of the company’s accounting situation. The three are investigated in a CVM (Securities and Exchange Commission) process regarding omission of information.