Clarifications about Ricardo Saud’s whistle blowing

Contrary to what has been alleged, CADE has not issued any decision in favour of EPE-JBS. The private contract signed by the parties to solve their dispute was not determined by any decision of CADE. Therefore, possible plans by third parties to influence the enforcer’s decisions were not successful.

CADE clarifies that:

1) With respect to the allegation that CADE has decided in favour of EPE-JBS regarding the price of the Bolivian gas, as mentioned by Ricardo Saud in his plea bargain testimony to the Federal Prosecution Service (MPF in its acronym in Portuguese):

This is a wrong information. It should be stressed that CADE has not issued any decision in favour of EPE-JBS. The case mentioned by the whistleblower remains at inquiry phase, which is a preliminary stage of investigation, and no decision or opinion has been issued yet. Click here to access the Administrative Inquiry No. 08700.009007/2015-04 and its flow within the autarchy.

2) According to the information submitted to CADE in the Inquiry files, the companies EPE and Petrobras signed a private contract with the purpose of solving their dispute regarding the gas supply. This contract was not determined by any decision of CADE. It is common, and usually desirable, that competitive disputes submitted to Cade are privately resolved by the parties themselves. It is worth mentioning that Ricardo Saud himself states that: “It is not that the deal was very good for us and bad for Petrobras. It ended up being a fair deal. A thermoelectric plant was not operating, while Brazil and the world were in need of energy, but could not generate, because the gas was more expensive than energy. So, now everything is right.”

3) The whistleblowing stated that Rodrigo Rocha Loures would have said “this would be the standard contract” and that “CADE would have to apply it to us and to other parties”: CADE reaffirms that no opinion or decision on this case has been issued yet, and, for this reason, the authority has not established any “standard contract” nor determined its imposition to any companies.

4) CADE’s staff and directors have never been aware that a political agent would allegedly be receiving resources from a private company in order to seek solutions within the agency. The ongoing case is extremely complex and its investigation has been conducted normally and following the normal procedures. CADE emphasizes that all the legal procedures related to this case were conducted by its technical staff based on the law, without any kind of favouritism. The absence of any opinion or decision rendered by CADE in favour of EPE-JBS is evidence that eventual plans by third parties to influence the agency’s decisions were not successful.