The (Comptroller General of the Union) of the Government (PT) has opened discussions with the Wesley brothers and to celebrate a new leniency agreement with the federal. The negotiations took place at least until January 2025.
A leniency agreement is a kind of award -winning denunciation of a company, in which it points to irregularities that have been committed and agrees to pay a fine in exchange for benefits in court.
For having made an agreement with the Public Prosecution Service, not with CGU, J&F of agreements with contractors involved in the scandals revealed by the validated by the minister, (Supreme Court).
But in a letter sent to the Federal Public Prosecutor in the Federal District in December last year, to which the Sheet He had access, CGU admitted that it already discussed the possibility of closing agreement with J&F. He said, however, that the terms are under confidentiality.
“Considering that the company J&F Investimentos SA confirmed before the Federal Supreme Court and the court of the 10th Federal Court of Brasilia the existence of ongoing negotiations, as well as the inherent collaboration of the relations of this CGU with the Federal Public Prosecution Service, I confirm, exceptionally, that there are negotiations in progress between this CGU and the company to enter into possible leniency agreement,” says the secretary, signed by the Secretary of Integrity of the Integrity of Integrity CGU, Marcelo Pontes Vianna.
In the document, Vianna said that the CGU has no attribution to “revise or interfere with agreements entered into by other public entities, including the MPF”, and that only acts within the competences given to her in the 2013 Anti -Corruption Law.
He also asked to be given “confidentiality treatment to this documentation”.
Sought, J&F stated that “it is not negotiating leniency agreement with the Comptroller General of the Union”, but did not explain the reasons that led to the interruption of the negotiations.
Also sought, the CGU reported in a statement that, according to the legislation, “eventual negotiations of leniency agreements can only be disclosed after the respective agreement is effective.”
“We emphasize, and without confirming the negotiation of the leniency agreement undergoing any legal entity, that the competence to enter into leniency agreements provided for in Law No. 12,846 of 2013, related to laws of the federal executive branch or against foreign public administration is exclusive to the CGU,” added the agency.
“For this reason, in several cases, legal entities sought to sign a leniency agreement with the CGU even after they have already entered into adjustment with the MPF, in order to resolve the administrative liability arising from the practice of harmful acts.”
Although not interfering with the prosecutor’s agreement, the possibility of a new agreement was seen by observers as another J&F attempt to get in court the reduction of amounts that pledged to pay by signing the first agreement.
Odebrecht also initially signed an agreement in 2016 with the prosecutor. Two years later, he closed leniency with the AGU (Attorney General of the Union) and CGU. The values of the second agreement were slaughtered from the first – and the contractor still managed to renew the payments this year.
Since the beginning of the Lula administration, J&F has been trying to get closer to the government and arrived in early 2023. In the past, the petista had due to the denunciation.
One of Joesley’s last performances was a meeting with US President Donald Trump, weeks before the republican’s nod to the Petista at the UN General Assembly.
As Sheet Showed, Joesley argued with Trump in the White House the 50% tariff applied by the US against products sold by Brazil, which affects the meat sector. Another topic of interest to the entrepreneur dealt with at the meeting was the importation of cellulose in the US.
The J&F leniency agreement with the Federal Public Prosecution Service was entered into in 2017 in the amount of R $ 10.3 billion, considered at the time as the largest ever signed, and included the facts found in five operations of which the company and its executives were targeted.
From the beginning there have been resistance from the Baptist about the agreement. The company tries to renegotiate the values at least since 2020, when it commanded (Attorney General’s Office).
They also tried to establish agreements with CGUs of past governments, before Lula management.
At the end of 2023, the STF minister made a decision that benefited the company and suspended the payment of the fine of R $ 10.3 billion in the leniency agreement.
In the same decision, Toffoli to have access to the full messages of Operation Spoofing, which has conversations between Lava Jato prosecutors. The minister also allowed the company to deal with the attachments of its agreement directly with the CGU.
In response to Toffoli’s decision, Minister André Mendonça opened a negotiation table between contractors who signed leniency agreements and the Union.
Only companies that signed leniency with the AGU (Attorney General of the Union) and CGU, federal government agencies,, which was not the case with J&F.
In the case file, there was an attempt to extend this discount to companies that signed leniency agreements with the prosecutor only, but this was not validated by Mendonça.
