Government guarantees change in Petrobras statute that facilitates political hiring

The Union approved this Thursday (30) changes to Petrobras’ statute that facilitate political appointments at the state-owned company. The new rules reduce restrictions on hiring company administrators. The Federal Audit Court (TCU) issued an injunction favorable to the Novo party to block changes to the company’s bylaws. The change was guaranteed, in large part, by the government’s support for the initiative.

The new text of the statute was approved by 54.98% of the votes, the Union holds 50.26% of the voting capital, informed the Estadão. Shareholders opposed to the change accounted for 31.96% of the votes, and 13.06% preferred to abstain. Previ, Banco do Brasil’s pension fund, voted in favor of the changes.

The Union representative, Ivo Timbó, classified the proposal to modify the statute as “obscure” and modified the text, including all types of conflicts of interest, both formal and material. Opposing shareholders tried to cancel the meeting, but the request was rejected by Timbó.

In the TCU’s injunction, Minister Jorge Oliveira determined that any change in the statute related to the relaxation of the criteria for appointing the board will not be made official until the merits of the representation are judged in the Court. In October, the council approved a review of the state-owned company’s senior management appointment policy to “exclude prohibitions on the appointment of administrators provided for in Law No. 13,303/2016 (State-Owned Companies Law)”.

The paragraph with the exclusion proposal reproduces excerpts from the State Law, following the understanding of the injunction granted by the then Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Ricardo Lewandowski, who suspended the effects of the rule that restricted political appointments. The Petrobras leadership considered that restrictions on political appointments no longer need to be included in the statute as they were overturned by Lewandowski’s injunction in March this year.

In addition to making hiring more flexible, Petrobras also approved at this Thursday’s meeting the creation of a capital remuneration reserve, which does not change the shareholder remuneration policy, as the effective constitution of the reserve would only be made at the end of the year, after the payment of dividends.