Audits refuse nomination to review Americanas emails

The auditing firms EY and Deloitte refused a request by the São Paulo Court to examine the computers of Americanas executives to produce evidence in the lawsuit filed by Bradesco against the retailer, which is currently undergoing judicial recovery.

Both claimed a conflict of interest. EY told the court that it had already been hired by Americanas to compose an independent committee for investigations into the crisis. Deloitte said only that it follows “internal guidelines”.

EY had been the first to be nominated by judge Andréa Galhardo Palma, from the 2^The Corporate Court of the Court of Justice of São Paulo, to monitor the due diligence on the retailer’s computers. Appointed as an expert in the case, attorney Patrícia Punder accepted the mission.

The judge authorized searches in all institutional email boxes of directors, members of the Board of Directors and the Audit Committee and employees of the accounting and finance areas —both current ones and those who have held these positions in the last ten years.

Americanas appealed the decision, claiming that the case is already being investigated by the competent authorities and that the audit of the emails creates the risk of leaking the privacy of third parties unrelated to the case to the press.

In response to the appeal, the lawyers representing Bradesco claimed that “Americanas was the stage for one of the biggest accounting frauds in the private sector” and asked that the request be denied by the judge.

The emails are also the target of the CVM (Securities and Exchange Commission), which opened a series of processes to investigate the crisis at the retailer. Two of them have already become surveys, which represents progress in the investigations.

They investigate the use of privileged information in the sale of company shares before the outbreak of the crisis and accounting irregularities in the company.

Minorities question whether the operations were carried out with knowledge of the company’s real situation, which came to light on January 11, when then-president Sergio Rial announced “accounting inconsistencies” in the amount of R$ 20 billion.

Americanas says it is ‘most interested’ in clarifying the facts

In a statement released on Tuesday night (31), regarding the measure to seize email boxes, Americanas claims to be “the most interested in clarifying the facts.”

According to the company, since the disclosure of the material fact on the last 11th, the company has taken “several measures” in order to “guarantee the strictest preservation of information and documents”, with the “objective of fully contributing to the investigations in course and authorities involved.”

Americanas cites the contracting of IBPTECH, a forensic expertise institute led by specialist Giuliano Giova, and of FTI Consulting, an international consultancy, “with the purpose of preserving data, through forensic copying (byte by byte, with hash code generation with registration in notarial minutes by notary office).”

According to the company, internal measures for data protection were also implemented, with the hiring of ICTS Security, a consultancy specializing in information security.

collaborated Daniele Madureira, from São Paulo