CVM opens investigation into change in command of Petrobras

The CVM (Securities Commission) decided to open an investigation into the disclosure of the exchange in charge of Petrobras. The process will assess whether the communication to the market followed the rules established for publicly-held companies.

The first information about the resignation of General Joaquim Silva e Luna from the presidency of the company began to circulate in the middle of the afternoon of Monday (28), with the market still open and before an official statement from Petrobras.

The state-owned company only sent a statement about the fact to the CVM after 8 pm, in a text that presented a new list of nominees for the company’s board of directors and indicated that economist Adriano Pires was chosen by the government to assume the presidency.

A similar process was opened after the resignation of the former president of the state-owned company, Roberto Castello Branco, announced by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) live on Facebook and only confirmed by Petrobras the following day.

The statements led the company to lose BRL 102.5 billion in market value in just one day, with investors fearing intervention in the company’s management and in its fuel pricing policy.

The new investigation was opened by the CVM’s Companies Monitoring department and its object is the supervision of news, material facts and announcements. The municipality does not comment on open processes.

The appointment of Pires will be considered by Petrobras shareholders at a meeting scheduled for April 13th. In it, shareholders will also evaluate the appointment of the president of Flamengo, Rodolfo Landim, to preside over the board of directors.

Silva e Luna was even nominated for the council, but the government’s list was redone in the face of the unease caused by the mega-increases in fuel prices, announced on the 11th in response to the escalation of international oil prices after the start of the war in Ukraine.

Bolsonaro’s relationship with Petrobras is the subject of other lawsuits filed with the CVM.

In October 2021, the municipality had opened a process to investigate Bolsonaro’s statements about privatization of the state-owned company, which had a strong impact on the company’s shares trading on the São Paulo Stock Exchange.

Petrobras was led to publish a statement stating that it questioned the government about studies for privatization and, a week later, received a response from the Ministry of Economy contradicting Bolsonaro’s statement about studies for privatization.

Another lawsuit was filed in the same month, shortly after Bolsonaro said that the state-owned company was about to announce new fuel price adjustments. The statements were made by the president shortly before the last announcement of the adjustment for gasoline and diesel, on October 25th.

Then, in December, the CVM opened a new investigation after the President of the Republic stated in an interview with the Poder 360 website that the state-owned company would announce a series of reductions in fuel prices, starting that week.