Market associations criticize RFP for political interference with regulators

Organizations that work in the corporate and capital investment market issued this Wednesday, the 14th, a document expressing refusal to the changes that Bill 2.896/2022 suggest Lei 13.303/2016, law on public companies; and to art. 8-A of Law No. 9986 (Regulatory Law). The changes make the investing of positions of administrators of state companies and directors of regulatory bodies more flexible, allowing, according to the subjects, the interference of political parties in these collegiate bodies. The text has Congress is expected to vote next week.

According to organizations, Law 13.303/2016 was the result of a long legislative process, with the interaction of civil society, and represented significant progress in the corporate governance of federal, state and municipal state-owned companies and in the adoption of protection against the risk of capture by party-political interests. These interests are said to have spawned infamous cases corruption, inefficiency in the distribution of public resources and serve selective and private purposes to the detriment of the purposes for which the companies were created.

The damage from unjustified political and party interference damages the state treasury and the quality of services and products supplied to the population, industry structures note. “Such interference negatively affects the Brazilian business environment, endangering the development of the country and the mitigation of existing social inequalities,” the document, published this Wednesday, January 14, says.

Organizations also remind that the standards introduced by the 2016 text are in line with recommendations from national and international sources. including governance guidelines for public enterprises as well as Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and that alignment with these standards is one of the steps envisaged in the process of Brazil’s accession to the OECD, which has already publicly acknowledged that the boards of directors of federal state-owned companies have increased their independence from party-political interference due to the obstacles established by the Law on State Companies .

“The OECD recommended that Brazil go beyond the achievements already made and pursue improvements such as (i) expanding the requirements and prohibitions for all committees of the board of directors and the financial board, (ii) effectively giving the board of directors the power to appoint and dismiss CEOs of state-owned companies, and ( iii) improving the rules and procedures for the appointment and appointment of directors of these companies,” they say.

Finally, the organizations that signed the manifesto hope and believe that the external control bodies and the judiciary itself will fulfill their duties in a timely manner, checking and punishing those responsible for deviations from the legal norms and management systems of state-owned companies and companies that control bodies. . Members of the executive and legislature must act to preserve Law 13.303/16, resisting any attempts at unlawful changes that lead to failure.

The document was signed by the Capital Market Investors Association (Amec); Association of Analysts and Investment Professionals of the Brazilian Capital Market (Apimec Brasil); Brazilian Institute of Corporate Governance (IBGC); Brazilian Institute of Commercial Law and Ethics (IBDEE); Institute for No Acceptance of Corruption (INAC); and the Institute for Business Ethos and Responsibility.