Before suspending Odebrecht payments, Toffoli already freed J&F from a billion-dollar fine

The decision taken by Minister Dias Toffoli, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), this Thursday (1st) to suspend payment of the fine imposed on Odebrecht in the leniency agreement resulting from the Operation Lava Jato investigations is not the only one to free a company from relations with the PT government.

At the end of last year, he temporarily canceled payment of the R$10.3 billion fine imposed on the J&F group as a result of Operation Greenfield, following the same allegation that the company had been abusively pressured by the Federal Public Ministry to do the deal. J&F used the same threat of persecution and partiality placed by politicians on Lava Jato to obtain the benefit.

As with the decision in favor of Odebrecht, Toffoli stated that “there would have been collusion” between the former judge and current senator Sergio Moro (União-PR) and the MPF prosecutors – including – former prosecutor and former deputy Deltan Dallagnol. The judge also granted access to files of leaked messages between authorities and members of Lava Jato.

“In view of the above, in line with the decisions previously given, I grant the requests made by the applicant”, wrote Toffoli in the decision.

Toffoli’s decision was a response to an appeal presented by J&F to the STF in November last year after obtaining a discount of R$6.8 billion on the fine, initially granted by the deputy attorney of the Republic, Ronaldo Albo, and annulled by the Institutional Council of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF).

J&F was also involved in the Sépsis, Cui Bono and Carne Fraca operations, and signed the leniency agreement in 2017. Toffoli justified the decision by stating that there is a “reasonable doubt” about the voluntary nature of the agreement signed.

The company stated in the request to Toffoli that prosecutors from both investigations were talking on cell phones about issues that “exceeded [muito] purely legal aspects”.

“We saw prosecutors involved in conversations about such people [físicas e jurídicas] with the aim of agreeing action strategies [não apenas jurídicas, mas também políticas]sharing information with colleagues who did not have any competence to take possible legal measures, among other highly questionable conduct”, said J&F at the time.

The clandestinely intercepted messages never had their integrity and authenticity confirmed by the Federal Police. They are now in the possession of the STF following the seizure, in 2019, of hackers’ computers where they were stored. The only guarantee about them is that they have not been changed since then, but there is no guarantee that they have not been edited before.

On the other hand, the PF itself issued a report confirming the integrity of the evidence collected as a result of Odebrecht’s leniency agreement, which was annulled by Toffoli and opened the way for the decisions to be challenged.

At the time, the corporation prepared a 321-page report explaining the technical examination of 11 hard drives and two pendrives containing copies of the Drousys and MyWebDay systems, created by Odebrecht and which were stored on servers in Sweden and Switzerland, through which the directors who They were part of the so-called “structured operations sector” and managed and recorded payments.