Justice removes Sidnei Piva from the command of Itapemirim

Businessman Sidnei Piva was removed from his duties at the head of the companies of the Itapemirim Group, which is in the process of judicial recovery.

According to a decision of February 18 by Judge Luciana Menezes Scorza, of the São Paulo State Court of Justice, Sidnei Piva was removed “from any position in the judicial reorganization process that allows him, in theory, to expend efforts to divert resources to any parallel company, especially [principalmente] for the ITA group”.

The judge’s decision also imposed on the businessman the use of electronic monitoring, as well as the monthly appearance in court to inform and justify his activities, in addition to being prohibited from leaving the country without judicial authorization. The information was anticipated by the newspaper O Globo.

When contacted, Itapemirim did not respond until the publication of this report.

In December 2021, the group’s air transport company, ITA (Itapemirim Transportes Aéreos), suddenly suspended activities on the eve of the holiday season, with an impact estimated by Procon-SP for about 130 thousand passengers.

In January, Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency) even banned ITA from selling airline tickets again until the company demonstrates that it has fulfilled all corrective actions for consumers affected by the suspension of its activities, such as re-accommodation and full refund of the air ticket.

Judge Scorza’s decision met the criminal representation presented by Camilo Cola Filho, heir to the company’s founder, Camilo Cola, who died in May 2021.

The beginning of the relationship between Sidnei Piva and the companies of the Itapemirim group dates from mid-2016, a few months after the presentation of the judicial recovery plan by the then controllers of the Cola family, in March of that year.

In the representation, Cola Filho points to irregularities that would have been committed by Piva at the head of the group, harming consumers, suppliers, employees and creditors “due to poor management, mainly in the services of Itapemirim Transportes Aéreos (ITA), which sold more tickets than the actual operating capacity”.

According to the case files pointed out by the judge in the decision, taking advantage of her position as manager of the judicial reorganization process, Sidnei Piva “has been, gradually since at least August 2020, appropriating values ​​from the “recovering” companies to create parallel companies”.

“See how things are, all it took was an impartial and courageous judge to do what the company recovery court and judge Azuma Nishi should have done a long time ago, which is to remove Sidnei from the management of Itapemirim”, says Olavo Chinaglia , from Chinaglia Oliveira Advogados, which represents the Cola family in the judicial recovery process.