Government ignores conflicts and elects rejected names for Petrobras Board

Even after the three denials, the names of Ricardo Soriano and Jonathas Assunção were approved to compose the Board of Directors of Petrobras. Soriano is head of the National Treasury Attorney’s Office and Assunção is the Executive Secretary of the Civil House Ministry.

Their appointment to the Petrobras Board may be questioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The information was confirmed to CNN by directors and shareholders.

During the Assembly, the representative of the Petrobras Engineers Association (AEPET), Fernando Siqueira, came to speak out against the holding of the AGE with the names of Soriano and Assunção, alleging a “government intervention in Petrobras”. However, the board of directors of the Assembly ratified the nominations of the federal government, and held the elections with the names ineligible by Celeg.

The meeting began shortly after 1:00 pm on Friday (8/19) and before 4:00 pm all eight vacancies had already been filled, six of which were nominated by the Union and two others by minority shareholders. The new president of the Council will be Gileno Gurjão, director-president of Serpro, the data processing body of the federal government. As the body is linked to the Special Secretariat for Debureaucratization, Gurjão was subordinate to the president of Petrobras, Caio Mario Paes de Andrade, who held the position of secretary.

Councilors heard by CNN called the federal government’s strategy of keeping the names even with the refusals a ‘jumper’. Since Petrobras’ integrity structure was completely overhauled in 2016, there is no situation identified by them as similar to this. Precisely for this reason, the maneuver can be questioned by the CVM, which had already expressed ‘strangeness’ when identifying names disapproved on the list.

The arguments raised by Petrobras’ Compliance/Compliance area, which were reinforced by the People Committee and the Board of Directors, are that Soriano and Assunção could have conflicts of interest if they took seats on the board. In the case of Soriano, he could be on two sides of the same table in Union actions against Petrobras or vice versa. In the case of Assunção, as an employee of the Ministry of the Civil House, the same problem – with an aggravating factor that, by holding a political office, he could violate the Law on State-Owned Companies.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy said that it did not agree with the collegiate notes and decided to keep the names.

Representatives of minority shareholders, Marcelo Gasparino and João Abdalla Filho, retained the two seats they already had on the Board.

The current president of the Council, Marcio Weber and Admiral Ruy Flaks, who is linked to former minister Bento Albuquerque, lost their seats, even though they were on the government’s list.

THE CNN found that the new directors are coming to Rio de Janeiro to take office by the end of this Friday (19/8), so the renewal of the Board of Directors should be practically immediate.

THE CNN it also questioned the CVM about the approval and is awaiting a response.

Elected to the Petrobras Board of Directors:

Marcelo Gasparino (for minority shareholders)

José João Abdalla (for minorities)

Edison Costa (for the Union)

Gileno Gurjão (for the Union)

Caio Mario Paes (for the Union)

Ricardo Soriano (for the Union)

Jonathan Assunção (for the Union)

Ieda Aparecida (for the Union)