Minister of the STF, Dias Toffoli suspended the fines under the leniency agreement; AGU says that action does not cover agreement signed with CGU
The AGU (Attorney General of the Union) sent an opinion to the minister of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) Dias Toffoli in which he says that the decision to suspended Fines related to the leniency agreement signed between Novonor (formerly Odebrecht) and Lava Jato do not apply to agreements signed between the contractor, the agency and the CGU (General Comptroller of the Union).
The opinion (complete – PDF – 62 kB) is dated Tuesday (6.Feb.2024) and was signed by Union lawyers João Bosco Teixeira, director of the Diffuse Control Department, and Priscila Soares Piau.
In notethe AGU said that its understanding “takes into account that the Union is not even a party to the process, as well as the literalness of the minister's decision, which in the part relating to pecuniary obligations refers only to the agreement signed with the MPF [Ministério Público Federal] and, in the section where it mentions the leniency agreement signed with CGU and AGU, it only authorizes the company to request a 'reassessment of the terms'”.
The agreement suspended by Toffoli was signed with the MPF in 2016. At the time, it was agreed that the company, which was the target of Lava Jato investigations, would pay the billion-dollar fine to authorities in Brazil, the United States and Switzerland.
The Minister of the Court understood that the evidence obtained in the Federal Police Spoofing operation raised doubts about the voluntariness of the agreement – which goes against what the law says for agreements like this. Here's the complete of the decision (PDF – 536 kB).
In the opinion sent to the magistrate, the AGU said that Toffoli “did not provide anything about the soundness of the leniency agreements signed with the Comptroller General of the Union and the Attorney General of the Union”.
The document reads: “It is concluded that the determination to suspend pecuniary obligations only affected those resulting from the leniency agreement signed between the company Novonor SA in Judicial Recovery and the Federal Public Ministry, as deduced in the petition presented by the requesting company.”.
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