Amid the internal discussion about rules to limit ministers’ lectures, the minister’s company (Federal Supreme Court) participates in the promotion of an event in Germany of which he himself is one of the main attractions.
Mendonça is the rapporteur of the investigation that investigates the fraud that led to the liquidation of fur. Febraban (Brazilian Federation of Banks) is also announced as an institutional supporter of the event, and its president, Isaac Sidney Menezes Ferreira, is expected to participate in a panel.
The event occurs at a time when the president of the court, , tries to implement a code of ethics for the court’s ministers. Conferences and lectures have been criticized for facilitating access by interested parties to members of the Supreme Court.
At the beginning of the month, when rebutting these criticisms, Minister Alexandre de Moraes stated that public opinion .
André Mendonça has not yet publicly commented on the creation of the code of ethics. According to an interlocutor, he told Fachin that he supports the proposal.
Last week, Mendonça published a video on his Instagram profile stating that he will allocate the institute’s profits.
“Our part of the Iter Institute will be for the consecration of an altar to God. Everything that possibly brings profit and results, I will set aside 10% for the tithe and the remaining 90% will be invested in social works and education”, he said.
Mendonça is a pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil and, upon being nominated to the STF in 2020 by Jair Bolsonaro (PL), he was classified by the then president as “terribly evangelical”.
The minister founded the Iter Institute in 2023, already as a member of the court. The company, based in , promotes courses in the legal area.
Last week, a legal congress in Spain because one of the members of a law firm defending Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Master, would be there.
The event in Frankfurt, entitled “Brazil-Germany International Dialogues”, is organized by the company Dinter Diálogos Continentais and will take place at Goethe University.
Dinter was founded by lawyer Ricardo Resende Campos and launched its website last November. In a statement distributed by his advisor, Campos stated that the purpose of the meeting is to “promote a space for high-level dialogue between academia, the public sector, the justice system, the market and international organizations.”
Publicity material for the event announces the presence of names considered close to the minister, such as the governor () and the former president of the Central Bank Roberto Campos Neto. Also included are the president of the Chamber, (Republicanos-PB), and two ministers from the Lula government: (Health) and (Mine and Energy).
Until last Wednesday (18), however, these authorities had not confirmed participation.
The Iter Institute’s consultancy is the same as that of Dinter. The organization informed that no speaker will be paid, but that some of them will have tickets and accommodation covered by the event — which, according to it, is not the case in Mendonça.
Iter, which, like Febraban, appears in the event’s promotional pamphlets, claimed to act as an academic partner of the meeting and declared that the minister is a visiting professor at the University of Frankfurt.
Febraban reported that institutional support for the event “does not have any temporal or causal link with the liquidation of Banco Master, much less with the recent redistribution of the inquiry’s report to Minister André Mendonça”.
The institution said, in a statement, that it began negotiations to support the event in September and that the contract was signed in December — at the time, the Banco Master case was being reported by minister Dias Toffoli, who left the investigation last week.
“The definition of Febraban’s support for academic events follows institutional policy and its own governance”, stated the federation, concluding that participation in the event “does not constitute a conflict of interest with the case under the Minister’s report, since the entity does not have any role in the investigation files”.
The report also questioned the Tarcísio government about possible participation and funding for the trip, but received no response.
