Americans try to delay production of evidence, says judge – 02/23/2023 – Market

Judge Andréa Galhardo Palma, who determined the expertise on emails from directors, advisers and employees in the areas of accounting and finance at Americanas, told Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), that the company is trying to postpone the inspection of communications .

This is because, according to her, the company never took the arguments presented in the complaint to the STF to the São Paulo Court. Americanas’ defense alleged that there was a risk of breach of confidentiality between the client and its lawyers.

Last week, the Supreme Court minister suspended the decision of Judge Andréa Palma – of the 2nd Regional Court of Business Competence and Conflicts Related to Arbitration in São Paulo–, which gave Bradesco access to these exchanges of correspondence between people in positions leadership in the company.

The banks’ strategy is to try to prove the existence of fraud in the retailer’s management, opening the way to charge the reference shareholders – billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Beto Sicupira and Marcel Telles– for compensation for the losses.

When contacted, Americanas says it will not comment.

“At no time did the plaintiff mention the alleged breach of secrecy of data and emails exchanged between lawyers vs. clients. Even if it had, they would also be protected by data secrecy and would be outside the object of the investigation”, wrote Judge André Palma .

She also states that both the preliminary decision that determined the expertise, and the confirmation by the Court of Justice of São Paulo, “made clear the preservation of the secrecy of the data obtained by the Justice and the respective expert appointed for expertise.”

The appeal brought by Americanas to the STF is a complaint. It goes straight to the Superior Court because it involves the risk of non-compliance with the constitutional precept that guarantees the secrecy of communications between lawyer and client. The case is handled by ADI (Direct Action of Unconstitutionality) 1127.

According to the progress in the STF, the provision of information was made by the judge on Friday (17), the day after Moraes’ decision, and entered the Supreme Court system on Wednesday (22).

Judge Andréa Palma states that the defense of the retail chain could have filed, with the TJ-SP, an appeal with suspensive effect, a type of appeal that, as the name suggests, could paralyze the expertise, but did not.

In the manifestation forwarded to the STF, the magistrate says that she considers that “there is a public interest in preserving the evidence and the risk of perishing” in the case presented by Bradesco. The bank is represented in the dispute with Americanas by Warde Advogados, which also represents Safra.

In another action, Santander also obtained an injunction to access the emails of directors, former directors, directors, former directors, employees and former employees of the finance and accounting areas of the retail chain.

Americanas is in judicial recovery. In January, just a few days before submitting the request for recovery to the Justice of Rio de Janeiro, it made public the discovery of accounting inconsistencies of R$ 20 billion. Afterwards, the company said it had debts in excess of R$40 billion.