Panel SA: JBS owners’ maneuver to re-discuss billion dollar fine fails

The attempt by JBS controllers to build with the top of the Federal Public Ministry a way to re-discuss the billion-dollar fine that they agreed to pay at the time when brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista signed their agreement to award a plea bargain, in 2017, failed.

In a judgment initiated this Tuesday (14), the Institutional Council of the MPF formed a majority to reject a request presented by J&F Investimentos for the 5th Coordination Chamber of the Public Ministry to be defined as the appropriate instance to review the fine.

The judgment was suspended because of a request for a review by the Assistant Attorney General of the Republic Ela Wiecko de Castilho, who asked for clarification on the leniency agreement signed by J&F five years ago, which provides for payment of a fine of R$ 10.3 billion in a period of 25 years.

J&F went to court not to pay an installment of BRL 344 million, which expired earlier this month. The Federal Court of the Federal District determined that the payment be made in court, but the company managed to reverse the decision in the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region.

The owners of JBS want to reduce the fine of the leniency agreement to R$1.3 billion, claiming that the Public Ministry adopted arbitrary criteria to calculate it and arguing that the company only agreed with the amount because it was under pressure from banks and partners commercial and public opinion.

The 5th Coordination Chamber, which ratified the agreement signed in 2017, rejected the requests for revision presented by the company, arguing that the matter should be dealt with in the first instance with the Federal District’s Attorney, which signed the leniency agreement.

Of the 21 members of the Institutional Council, 12 voted against J&F’s request on Tuesday. None came out in favor of the company. Four advisers said they would await Ela Wiecko’s vote before speaking. Another four members of the collegiate were absent.

Deputy Attorney Julieta Elizabeth Fajardo Cavalcanti de Albuquerque, who served as rapporteur of the case, said the company used an “inventive artifice aired out of a pocket without any backing, contrary to the legal order” to re-discuss the billion-dollar fine.

Recalling that J&F was benefited by the leniency agreement, which guaranteed lighter punishments for crimes recognized by the Batista brothers, she said that the company tried to “change the rules of the game after the game started”, in an attempt to “benefit from its own turpitude”.

Former Attorney General of the Republic Aristides Junqueira, who represented J&F at the trial, indicated that the company accepts the transfer of the case to the lower court if its request is rejected. Sought, the J&F press office did not comment.

With Ricardo Balthazar (interim), Andressa Motter e Ana Paula White​.