The Petrobras Council (PETR4) will meet to judge the remaining nominations; Efrain must be reprimanded

The Board must give its opinion on all such nominations by April 27, the date of the Ordinary General Assembly Meeting (AGO), when the new Board of Directors is elected

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April 13, 2023, at 12:23 p.m – Updated 1 hour ago

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – OCTOBER 15: An exterior view of the Petrobras headquarters building in downtown Rio de Janeiro on October 15, 2021 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. President Jair Bolsonaro said in a radio interview Thursday that he analyzes the privatization of state-owned oil company Petrobras, which is under pressure to lower fuel prices. On Wednesday, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes suggested that the government sell part of its controlling stakes within a decade to fund social welfare programmes. (Photo by Wagner Meyer/Getty Images)

Petrobras Board of Directors (PETR3;PETR4) scheduled for Friday the 14th, an extraordinary meeting to analyze further nominations for the new university. The current council has yet to evaluate six names nominated as candidates by the federation and two by minorities. The Council shall give its opinion on all such nominations by April 27, the date of the Ordinary General Assembly (AGO), when the new Council will be elected with the names specified by the Lula government.

Cruz’s refusal should be fully confirmed by the board on Friday, one source says, because Cruz holds a direct position in the federal government and his appointment is prohibited by state law (13.303), because it poses a potential conflict of interest. The case is similar to that of Pietro Mendez, who ended up being rejected by the board of directors in a close vote, by a score of four to three. In the case of Rezende, the ban is due to his alleged leadership of his party and was unanimously recognized by the current Petrobras Council.

Rejections do not automatically eliminate nominations, because Cobb’s opinion is purely advisory in nature and, historically, the decisions of the shareholder body are enforced. The situation of the three CEOs now rejected by the Petrobras governance is similar to what happened in the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), when Ricardo Soriano, Prosecutor General of the National Treasury, then Special Secretary of the Civic House, was appointed. , Jonathas Assunção, in the first three instances of the process (internal governance, Cope and the board of directors), and ended up agreeing “by force”, during the shareholder meeting, a forum in which the government has a majority votes to represent the union controller of the company.

The question now is whether Lula’s government will take the same position as the previous government, ignoring the recommendations of the state-owned companies’ committees, or will it change Cruz’s candidacy to one of the three names announced on a reserve basis, in addition to the preliminary list of eight names. These are: Renato Campos Gallupo, Aneliz Linzy Ruas de Almeida and Ivamar Jose dos Santos.

According to sources, despite remaining on the board, Ricardo Soriano and Jonathas Assuncao had open cases at the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), which would be another problem for Mendes, Cruz and Resende.

In addition to potentially being targeted by CVM, Cruz and Mendes, both appointed by the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silvera, still have to deal with the head of Petrobras, Jean-Paul Pratis. Cruz is Silvera’s trusted name, whose relationship with Ratis behind the scenes wasn’t the best.

The conflict began precisely because of differences in the list of directors and directors of the state-owned company, and continued on other agendas, such as divestment policy and pricing policy, sensitive issues on which Silvera pressured Prates to take a position, even when the previous board of directors had already taken it.