Anac remains on duty against actions by concessionaires – 05/11/2023 – Panel SA

Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency) set up a special scheme, with lawyers on standby, to deal with possible lawsuits against the government’s decision to prevent the use of precatories in the payment of concessions.

Precatories are Union debt securities with final court rulings. Constitutional amendments enacted by Congress in 2021 allowed the use of these papers as currency in transactions with the Union.

As reported by the Panel SA, the chief minister of the Advocacy General of the Union (AGU), Jorge Messias, ordered all federal administration bodies to suspend the analysis of requests from companies interested in settling installments of concession grants with these papers .

The order also applies to other types of operations, such as the acquisition of public properties.

According to the AGU, the measure will remain in place until the government publishes a new regulation on the subject, with the procedures to be adopted by the administration entities in these cases – which should occur within fifteen days.

The prohibition harms businesses of some of the largest airport concessionaires in the country, which, according to Anac, must go to court to enforce the constitutional provisions now. They have proposed to the agency the use of precatories in the payment of grants.

In a letter sent on Wednesday (10th) to other persons responsible for the legal area in the government, ANAC attorney general, Gustavo Carneiro de Albuquerque, recommended compliance with the AGU order and, in parallel, intense monitoring of probable actions starting from 19 sector utilities.

The greatest risk of questioning, according to him, comes from holders of two concessions: the Congonhas (SP) blocks and ten more terminals; and Campo de Marte (SP) and Jacarepaguá (RJ).

“The most obvious effect of the recommendation of the PF/ANAC, in compliance with the determination of the Minister Advocate General of the Union, is the frustration of the expectation of airport concessionaires who presented precatories as measures of performance of obligations through compensation” , justified the attorney general.

He lists five authorities as targets of the actions, among them the director-president of Anac, Tiago Sousa Pereira, and the attorney general of the Union.

For this, he informed the cell phones of three attorneys for the purpose of “following the duty”.

“Considering the potential risk of judicialization against the recommendation of the Honorable Advocate General of the Union, I consider it pertinent to dialogue with the representation bodies in competent higher courts”, he recommended.

The AGU’s decision comes amid a lack of definition by the federal government on what to do with the determination included in the Constitution by parliamentarians.

One of the main points of this constitutional change was the possibility that infrastructure concessionaires, instead of money, could use precatories to settle their commitments.

The solution adopted by the parliamentarians was an attempt to reduce the government’s growing stock of legal debts and improve public accounts.

For companies, negotiations of this type are advantageous because the securities are acquired from the original creditors in the market, at a discount.

With Diego Felix

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