Left wants Gilmar to suspend fines from Lava Jato companies

PCdoB, Solidariedade and PSOL, parties that make up the support base of the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), called the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to ask for the suspension of the fines that contractors undertook to pay to the National Treasury, in reason for the acts of corruption they confessed to practicing at Petrobras. The parties say that the leniency agreements they accepted were not valid, as they would have been signed under “coercion” by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF).

The action represents yet another move by the left to reverse Lava Jato’s achievements in the fight against corruption. The operation ensured that the five main construction companies involved in the Petrolão scandal – Odebrecht, OAS, Andrade Gutierrez, UTC and Camargo Corrêa – repaired the public coffers by R$8.1 billion, of which only R$1 billion has been paid so far. .

For the parties, however, this commitment must be revised. They argue that the agreements should have been led by the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), the ministry responsible for overseeing the Executive, but directly subordinated to the President of the Republic. The current head of the portfolio is Vinícius de Carvalho. Chosen by Lula, he has already held prominent positions in the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) and in the Ministry of Justice in past PT administrations and is a critic of the way companies caught in Lava Jato were held accountable.

At the STF, the action was raffled off for the report by Minister André Mendonça. A former career civil servant at the Attorney General’s Office (AGU), he served as a special advisor to the Union’s Comptroller General’s Office (CGU) and was one of those responsible for negotiating the Lava Jato leniency agreements. Mendonça has always defended the validity of the agreements.

Request from the left can remove André Mendonça’s report in corruption proceedings

As soon as the action was distributed, the parties filed a formal request for him to drop the case and hand the case over to Gilmar Mendes.

Leftist parties argued that Mendes, who has become one of Lava Jato’s most outspoken critics, has more experience with the subject, having already worked on a related issue. In the past, the minister allowed companies that were involved in corruption to be hired by the government again, overturning the ban that had been approved by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU).

The request has a chance to be accepted. That’s because, traditionally, when a justice is questioned in this way, he delegates the decision on who gets the case to the presidency of the STF, occupied today by Rosa Weber. It is possible that André Mendonça will adopt this procedure.

Argument to attack Lava Jato is that CGU and not MPF should make deals with defendants

In the action, the parties say that it is necessary to carry out a “rationalization of the fight against corruption in the country”, arguing that it would be up to the CGU to conduct the negotiations. It is said that, in Lava Jato, there was “overlapping of different bodies concluding agreements” – in fact, at the beginning of the operation, the same company was charged by the MPF, but also by the TCU, Cade, CGU and AGU.

Only in August 2020, Dias Toffoli, then president of the STF, entered into an agreement between the bodies to unify negotiations of agreements with defendants. The aim was for companies to be able to negotiate in a “one stop shop”, instead of dealing separately with the various bodies.

The MPF, however, did not accept, claiming that the other bodies did not have independence, as they were linked to the Executive and Legislative branches. As a result, in practice, the MPF continued to be able to enter into its own agreements or propose actions of impropriety against companies that did not accept the spontaneous return of embezzled funds.

In the action taken to the STF, the parties pointed to the existence of a “punitivist and unconstitutional hermeneutic of lavajatismo” in the agreements made by the MPF. The CGU, on the contrary, would be a “rationalizing center” for the negotiations. “The agreements were entered into in a situation of extreme political-legal-institutional abnormality, through a situation of coercion and, therefore, under an Unconstitutional State of Affairs”, they said.

They also stated that not only companies were harmed, but society as well, “with the cascading effect of the generalized bankruptcy of strategic companies for the Brazilian economy”. The action also reproduces several of the attacks, with catchphrases, that helped to dismantle the operation in recent years, also said by Lula.

Deputy says that the left advocates for companies involved in corruption

Former head of Lava Jato in Paraná and now federal deputy, Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos) criticized the initiative. “It tries to prevent more than R$ 10 billion from returning to public coffers. And it goes further: more than R$ 1 billion already paid by companies would be returned! That’s it: the hardworking Brazilian would pay Odebrecht what it stole from him”, he posted on Twitter.

Former judge of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba and responsible for most cases, Senator Sergio Moro (União-PR) also protested. “First, the PT tried to overturn in the STF the restrictions imposed on visits to PCC and CV leaders in maximum security federal prisons. Now, PCdoB, Psol and Solidariedade, satellite parties of the PT, are trying to overturn in the STF the fines and indemnities imposed on Odebrecht and other contractors for the corruption scandals discovered by Lava Jato. The ADPF is being used in favor of the world of crime and against the citizen”, he published on social networks, in reference to the action.

On the tribune of the Chamber, deputy Rosângela Moro (União-SP), wife of Moro, also elected under the anti-corruption banner, drew attention to the fact that the companies themselves did not contest the agreements.

“It means saying that the left is advocating for companies that owe justice. Why does the left do this? Because they are companies with which this party maintained spurious relations, as Lava Jato showed”, said the parliamentarian, referring to the PT, calling the others, who proposed the action, satellites.