Institute makes BO against Americanas after website goes down – 06/07/2023 – Market

The Instituto Ibero-American da Empresa filed a police report against Americanas, after a website created by the entity to engage the retailer’s investors in an indemnity action was taken down, the institute said on Wednesday (7).

The report for damages and fraud was registered on Tuesday (6) with the Civil Police of Rio Grande do Sul, according to the entity.

Representatives for Americanas did not respond to a request for comment.

The institute had created the website to bring together investors who owned at least 5% of Americanas’ capital in total and who felt aggrieved by the accounting crisis that led to the company’s judicial recovery. The entity did not inform the percentage of shareholders gathered by the site before it was taken down.

The company’s shares have dropped about 90% since the case broke in January. The entity’s plan is to seek arbitration at the Chamber of B3.

The threshold of 5% is necessary, according to the Brazilian Corporate Law, to seek compensation for damages against a company without the need for a guarantee to cover, for example, lawyers’ costs in case the action is dismissed.

The compensation site, however, was taken down at the end of May, according to the entity. The institute stated that it received a message from the provider Hostinger that demanded the removal of the email address due to copyright infringements, following a request from Americanas.

Hostinger, based in Lithuania, did not respond to a request for comment.

The institute, which claims to work with minority investors in cases of corporate corruption and has already worked on cases against companies such as IRB, BMG and Natura, stated that this is an attempt by Americanas to prevent the injured shareholders from meeting. In addition, he claimed that the company cannot be sued without mentioning its name, and that there was no commercial use of the brand by the site.

Americanas has been the target of investigations into around BRL 20 billion in accounting inconsistencies revealed earlier this year, as well as its executives and former executives and controllers. The case started a crisis that led the retailer to one of the largest judicial recovery processes in the history of the country.

A Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) was opened in the National Congress on the retailer’s crisis, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) accused two former presidents of the company this month for the way in which information about the case was disclosed to the market. Other investigations are ongoing by the regulator and the Federal Police.

The Instituto Ibero-americano da Empresa said that after trying to reverse Hostinger’s decision, it filed the police report, in which it accuses Americanas of damages for preventing the shareholders’ meeting and for fraud in allegedly alleging that the entity was using the brand commercially .

“The company and its controllers try to get rid of an eventual condemnation without even having to face the process”, said the institute, in a note, in which it calls the company’s accounting inconsistencies “fraud”. Americanas’ main shareholders are the trio of billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira. A representative for the trio did not respond to a request for comment.

The entity also said it had filed a lawsuit with the CVM about the removal of the site from the air. The regulatory body confirmed the existence of the complaint, and said that it “analyzes information and movements within the scope of the Brazilian securities market, taking the appropriate measures, whenever necessary”.

Reuters showed in January that the institute was preparing an arbitration of BRL 500 million against Americanas.