Petrobras Committee rejects two Bolsonaro nominees for the board

Petrobras’ internal committee that analyzes nominations for management positions at the state-owned company asks for the rejection of two of President Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) nominees for the renewal of the company’s board of directors.

As expected, the committee assessed that Jhonatas Assunção and Ricardo Soriano received negative opinions. The first is number two for the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira, and the second, the Attorney General of the National Treasury.

In the committee’s assessment, the two appointments create a risk of conflict between the interests of Petrobras and the interests of the controlling shareholder. The final decision, however, will be made by the shareholders, who will vote on the new board at a meeting scheduled for the end of August.

The renewal of the council is part of a government effort to have a more aligned management at the state-owned company and avoid fuel price readjustments on the eve of the election. The first step was the replacement of José Mauro Coelho by Caio Paes da Andrade in charge of the company.

Petrobras’ board of directors has 11 seats. Currently, the government occupies six, as it lost two to the company’s largest private shareholder, Banco Clássico, at the last shareholders’ meeting.

Another two are occupied by representatives of minority shareholders and the last one, by representatives of employees of the state-owned company. For the next assembly, the government has nominated eight names, including Paes de Andrade.

Assunção and Soriano were already being questioned by both minority shareholders and the company’s employee unions, who saw conflicts with rules established by the State-owned Companies Law and the company’s own statute.

All other six names were approved. Marcio Weber and Ruy Flacks Schneider are already part of the company’s board. The others are Paes de Andrade, Ieda Cagni, Edison Garcia and Gileno Gurjão Barreto, appointed to chair the council.

The last three are holders of public administration positions, which is also the subject of questioning. The approval of the names had reservations that they do not operate in operations related to the state-owned company.

Regarding Assunção, the committee understood that its eventual appointment would result “in the possibility of a wide range of divergent interests between Petrobras and the State”, since it acts in the decision-making of the federal government as secretary of the Civil House.

Regarding Soriano, he stated that his appointment represents “an undeniable and insurmountable conflict of interest between the nominee and the exercise of the intended position, since the latter represents one of Organs most important bodies of the political-administrative person controlling the mixed capital company.”

In an effort to reduce resistance from the board of directors, the list presented by the government differs from all other board renewals since the end of Dilma Rousseff’s administration, by prioritizing names linked to public administration instead of names from the financial and oil markets.

The minutes of the meeting, however, point out that “it is up to the company’s shareholders, meeting in a meeting, the judgment of convenience and opportunity to elect or not each of the nominees, as well as to evaluate all the skills necessary for the exercise of the position”.

As a majority shareholder, the government has enough votes to elect part of the board, but in recent years it has been losing seats to minority shareholders, who are mobilizing to try to resist political interference in the company’s management.

In the next election, two representatives of Banco Clássico will also run for seats: banker João José Abdalla Filho and lawyer Marcelo Gasparino. Both had been elected at the last assembly in April.