quinta-feira, 7 de setembro de 2017

#Brazil’s fabulous Batista boys (from The Economist)

#Brazil’s fabulous Batista boys (from The Economist)



SOURCE/LINK: https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21722696-meat-mongers-whose-testimony-could-end-michel-temers-presidency-brazils-fabulous-batista





Rough cuts

Brazil’s fabulous Batista boys

The meat-mongers whose testimony could end Michel Temer’s presidency

 Print edition | The Americas

May 25th 2017| BOA VISTA
JOSÉ BATISTA SOBRINHO helped build Brasília. In 1957 his meat business supplied canteens that fed workers constructing Brazil’s modernist capital. Now his two youngest sons, Wesley and Joesley, are bringing the place down. As the bosses of the company their father founded, renamed JBS in his honour, they are at the centre of a scandal that may force a president out of office for the second time in a year (see article).
JBS is the world’s biggest beef exporter. Its revenues rose from 3.9bn reais ($1.8bn) in 2006 to 170bn reais last year, helped by China’s appetite and Brazil’s enthusiasm for national champions. From 2007 to 2015 the development bank, BNDES, injected into Batista enterprises more than 8bn reais in capital and loans. Most of it was to help JBS buy rivals, including American brands like Swift and Pilgrim’s Pride. J&F, the family’s holding company, has diversified into non-meat businesses, including Havaianas, which makes fashionable flip-flops.

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As JBS was buying up rivals, the Batistas were buying politicians. The company’s declared campaign donations swelled from 20m reais in 2006 to nearly 400m reais in the election in 2014; in that contest it gave more than any other firm. In the past decade the brothers have bankrolled 1,829 candidates; their largesse helped elect a third of the current congress. Little of it was legal. The Batistas have confessed that almost all the declared cash, plus millions paid under the table, was bribes to politicians specifically to further J&F’s interests.
In the past year the Batistas’ firms have faced five criminal investigations. The latest probes J&F’s dealings with BNDES, which provided finance at the behest of paid-off politicians.
To save their enterprises, and themselves, the brothers approached prosecutors investigating the metastasising bribery scandal centred on Petrobras, the state-run energy company. The bargain they struck was their niftiest deal yet. In exchange for providing evidence of wrongdoing by major political figures—including, possibly, President Michel Temer—they secured near-total immunity. Unlike Marcelo Odebrecht, boss of a construction firm at the heart of the Petrobras allegations, neither Batista will spend a day in jail or under house arrest. Free to leave Brazil, Joesley has already moved to his posh New York flat with his wife, a former television presenter, and their child. He and Wesley each agreed to pay fines of 110m reais, which leaves them both billionaires.
The meat-mongers are not completely off the hook. JBS may face bribery probes and lawsuits from holders of the company’s securities in the United States. Brazil’s markets watchdog is looking into possible insider trading. In the weeks before May 17th, when details of their explosive testimonies leaked to the press, the Batistas sold more than 300m reais’ worth of JBS shares and bought dollars. The shares have lost a third of their value since then; the dollar jumped by 7% on the next day. The brothers and their firms deny allegations of insider trading. Apparently, they are blessed with their father’s foresight. 
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "The fabulous Batista boys"

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Published since September 1843 to take part in
“a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward,
and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”

==//==




#Joesley Batista on the view of Brazilian Justice to be arested

September 06, 2017 | 05:30 p.m.

PARTICULAR SIGNS: Joesley Batista, by Kleber Sales

 Brazilian Congress pressured the Attorney General Rodrigo Janot for Joesley Batista's Arrest


Congressional leaders estimate that Attorney General Rodrigo Janot will have to file charges and seek the arrest of J & F executives, Joesley Batista, Wesley Batista and Ricardo Saud, as well as former prosecutor Marcelo Miller, if he is to maintain his power. As he has adopted strict behavior with lawmakers in his denunciations, Congressmen and congressional senators say Janot will be weakened if he does not repeat the attitude with his former colleague Miller and with the
J & F informers who omitted important data.


Compare. Only one person will be able to tell if the audios recovered by the PF are the same ones that Joesley Batista delivered to PGR last Thursday: Minister Edson Fachin. Lava Jato's rapporteur at STF is copying
the two recordings.


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Congresso pressiona pela prisão de Joesley Batista

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Coluna do Estadão
06 Setembro 2017 | 05h30

SINAIS PARTICULARES: Joesley Batista, por Kleber Sales

Líderes do Congresso avaliam que o procurador-geral da República, Rodrigo Janot, terá de denunciar e pedir a prisão dos executivos da J&F, Joesley Batista, Wesley Batista e Ricardo Saud, além do ex-procurador Marcelo Miller, se quiser manter sua força. Como tem adotado comportamento rigoroso com os parlamentares nas denúncias que apresenta, deputados e senadores da cúpula do Congresso dizem que Janot ficará fragilizado se não repetir a atitude com seu ex-colega Miller e com os delatores do J&F, que omitiram dados importantes.
Compara. Só uma pessoa poderá dizer se os áudios recuperados pela PF são os mesmos que Joesley Batista entregou à PGR na última quinta: o ministro Edson Fachin. O relator da Lava Jato no STF está com a cópia das duas gravações.

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