Petrobras Committee approves Weber to preside over the Board, but makes recommendations

Nominated for the presidency of Petrobras’ Board of Directors, the executive Márcio Weber was approved by the Eligibility Committee of the state-owned company. The collegiate conducts a kind of internal audit to check whether the background of the nominees is in accordance with the law and the company’s compliance standards.

Weber was nominated for the presidency of the council after Rodolfo Landim’s resignation on Sunday (3), and received his seal at the last committee meeting on Tuesday (5). Weber’s approval was quick because he is a candidate for reelection and was on the first list of nominees by the Union for the composition of the group, presented in early March.

After the analysis of background check of integrity and management capacity, the Eligibility Committee decided that Weber meets the requirements set out in the State-Owned Companies Act and the nomination policy. However, he made some recommendations to the executive.

He needs, for example, to commit not to perform any act at Petrobras that is related to the companies in which he has a stake and to adopt measures so that they formally abstain from providing services to Petrobras and to suppliers and competitors in the oil and gas sector.

The committee also recommends that Weber not work with companies linked to his partner. Currently, the engineer advises the PMI group, which operates four deepwater exploration platforms.

The minutes were published on Wednesday (6) and sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The document aims to assist shareholders during the Ordinary General Meeting, on the 13th.

The analysis by José Mauro Ferreira Coelho, nominated for the presidency of Petrobras, may take a little longer. THE CNN Brazil found out that he needs to fill out forms (one of them with 18 pages) and send documents that will be analyzed by the state company.

The company’s compliance officers also investigate corporate links in companies, shares in publicly traded companies that the candidate owns. The process takes, on average, ten days, but can take up to three weeks.

However, a provision envisaged by Petrobras allows the president to be elected by shareholders even before the completion of the company’s compliance review process. This is because nominations can be made at any time, until the eve of the vote by the Assembly.

This means that, even if Coelho’s process has not been concluded by the date of the meeting, he can have his name evaluated by the shareholders and be elected. Possession, however, would only happen after the green light from the compliance area.

*With information from Pedro Duran