Members of the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee (CAE) will meet this week with the president of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Edson Fachin, and the director general of the Federal Police, Andrei Rodrigues, to request collaboration and information about the Master case. The president of the CAE, senator Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), created a subcommittee within the collegiate to investigate suspected fraud involving the institution liquidated by the Central Bank in November.
According to the CAE statement, Renan should meet with Andrei this Wednesday, at 5pm, at the PF headquarters, “to request collaboration and information about the Banco Master fraud”. In Fachin’s case, the forecast is for an institutional meeting with the subcommittee on the same day, at 6:30 pm.
Part of the collegiate met with the president of the Central Bank, Gabriel Galípolo, and with the president of the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU), Vital do Rêgo, last week. After the meeting with Galípolo, the president of CAE stated that he requested a copy of all documentation involving Master from the financial regulator, including confidential documents. He did not rule out the possibility of the CAE asking the Senate plenary to vote on breaking the confidentiality of protected data.
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Renan also said that Galípolo was helpful, but participants at the meeting said that the president of the BC explained that the sharing of documents depends on the decision of reporting minister Dias Toffoli, of the STF, who imposed strong secrecy on the case. The group’s senators hope that institutional contacts with the STF will resolve this impasse.
Before the meeting with Galípolo, the president of the CAE had been very emphatic that Galípolo “needs to help” the commission to unravel the fraudulent scheme, remembering that the former president of the BC Chico Lopes left Congress arrested.
“A president of the Central Bank has already left the National Congress in prison, Chico Lopes. It is clear that we do not want this to happen again, but President Galípolo, with whom we have the best relationship, needs to help the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee to unravel what happened. This year is an election year, we will not have much time. It is clear that we will only deepen the inspection and investigation if we have the information.”
The CAE president also stated that he intends to send written questions to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva about the meeting outside the official agenda with the owner of Banco Master, Daniel Vorcaro.
In addition to institutional visits and calls from authorities, the working group’s work plan foresees a cycle of thematic public hearings, starting with the extrajudicial liquidation of the bank and the actions of the BC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM). Specific hearings are also planned to discuss possible supervisory failures and regulatory bottlenecks revealed by the case.
At the end of the work, the CAE must consolidate a report with conclusions and recommendations, which could result in legislative proposals to tighten inspection rules and mitigate the risk of new collapses in the financial system. One of the proposals should be to expand the BC’s regulatory scope to cover the supervision of funds, one of the mechanisms that the Master allegedly used to conceal fraudulent operations, according to the investigation.
