Panel SA: Survey of Americanas emails gets stuck in court

The impasse over the inspection of computers by Americanas executives in search of evidence of accounting fraud had a new obstacle this Thursday (2).

The civil court in Rio de Janeiro refused the request from the Justice of São Paulo for the search and seizure of email boxes.

The substitute judge of the 2nd business court of the district of Rio Alexandre de Carvalho Mesquita returned, without complying, the letter rogatory he received from the 2nd regional court of business competence and conflicts of the capital of São Paulo.

In the negative, he says he sees a conflict of competence. “If all the steps must be taken in this district, there is no factual or legal reason for the anticipated production of evidence to be granted by an incompetent court”, says the judge from Rio de Janeiro in the text.

Earlier, Judge Ricardo Negrão, of the 2nd Reserved Chamber of Business Law of the Justice of São Paulo, denied Americanas’ appeal against the decision that allowed inspection of computers. The lawsuit was filed by Bradesco, which has BRL 4.7 billion in receivables from Americanas and claims that the company “was the stage for one of the biggest accounting frauds by the private sector”.

On Wednesday (1), the retailer had already had another appeal denied by the lower court judge who authorized the searches. She determined that the inspection be carried out by Kroll and that the information be shared with the CVM (Securities and Exchange Commission).

Joana Cunha with Paulo Ricardo Martins and Diego Felix