Court suspends Lula-appointed Petrobras board member

Petrobras HQ in Brasília. Photo: Marcelo Camargo/EBC

A federal court in São Paulo temporarily removed Sergio Machado Rezende from Petrobras’s board of directors. He had been appointed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2023 and would leave the oil giant at the end of April.

The decision resulted from a request by São Paulo state lawmaker Leonardo Siqueira of the libertarian Novo party, who claimed the appointment violated the state-owned company’s regulation. Petrobras said it will appeal the decision.

Last month, President Lula put forward eight nominations for the company’s new board of directors – three new names plus five current members, who should remain. Mr. Rezende was not asked to stay, giving way to the deputy executive secretary of the Finance Ministry, Rafael Dubeux.

Without the Supreme Court’s injunction last year that suspended some parts of the 2016 law on state-owned companies, Mr. Rezende would not have been able to serve on the company’s board.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, the law imposed a three-year quarantine period before politicians or party leaders could hold positions in state-owned and state-controlled companies. São Paulo judge Paulo Cezar Neves Junior argued, however, that, despite the Supreme Court’s injunction, Petrobras’ statute still stipulated restrictions when the current board was elected.

Fabiane Ziolla Menezes

Former editor-in-chief of LABS (Latin America Business Stories), Fabiane has more than 15 years of experience reporting on business, finance, innovation, and cities in Brazil. The latter recently took her back to the classroom and made her a Master in Urban Management from PUCPR. At TBR, she keeps an eye on economic policy, game-changing businesses, and people driving innovation in Latin America.