The 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, where the main files of the Lava Jato operation were processed, validated an agreement according to which the Monegasque government would keep half of the 162 million reais confiscated from the former director of Petrobras Services, Renato Duque.
The draft agreement, which is being handled in secret, was presented to the court by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office of Paraná and aims to unlock resources.
These sums are located in offshore accounts in the principality that belonged to Duque, and their destination remains undefined. Previous court rulings determined that the money should be sent to Petrobras, the main victim of the contract breaches.
Request from the Public Prosecutor’s Office sent to the Federal Court of Paraná and obtained by Leaf requested urgency in the evaluation and deliberation of the draft agreement with the Monegasque authorities so that part of the amounts is transferred to Brazil and the other part remains with the government of Monaco.
The allocation of these resources could be controversial because, in the past, the judges of the Lava Jato Court, in Curitiba, decided that the sum confiscated from Duque should be attributed to Petrobras, victim of irregularities.
Both Judge Sergio Moro (now senator of União Brasil-PR) and magistrate Luiz Antônio Bonat (who was promoted and today sits in the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region) made decisions in this regard.
Other operating agreements have also been the subject of controversy before the Supreme Court. In 2019, the Minister of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) Alexandre de Moraes ruled against the jurisdiction of the 13th Federal Court of Paraná to decide on the attribution of the fines agreed by Petrobras to the United States.
The court had approved an agreement for the private management of these resources. The minister wrote in his decision that the body did not have the competence to reach a compromise on the allocation of the money. He also said that Lava Jato prosecutors in Paraná also did not have the necessary responsibilities for this management.
The same year, Moraes himself validated an agreement to direct resources from these fines to the Amazon and investments in education.
In the case of the values confiscated in Duque, the PGR (Attorney General) declared that the MPF of Paraná should send Monaco’s proposal to the Court, so that the analysis can be carried out.
The Judicial Power has decided to accept the proposal of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, which allows, according to the organization, “the subsequent development of the final agreement which will be provided by the PGR”.
The Paraná Public Prosecutor’s Office understood that it was up to the 13th Federal Court itself to validate the Monaco agreement. “The jurisdiction for the repatriation and destination of confiscated property, in accordance with the international agreement, belongs to the court which rendered the confiscation decision subject to execution abroad,” specifies the organization in its request.
“It is therefore the 13th Federal Court which has jurisdiction to assess and deliberate on the security measures which implement the blocking of assets abroad.”
The MPF also specifies that “the sharing proposal, if approved, will be signed by the General Prosecutor’s Office and similar authorities of Monaco, as well as other acts requested by the MPF’s Secretariat for International Cooperation, such as the new establishment of international legal collaboration.”
Contacted by the report, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office of Paraná said the process was confidential and therefore would not comment. Duque’s defense said it would only respond in this case.
He was one of Lava Jato’s main targets and also one of its longest-serving prisoners. Last year, a federal judge in Paraná ordered his return to prison because he still had to serve a custodial sentence of 39 years, 2 months and 20 days, in closed regime.
This sanction referred to four convictions that had already become final, that is to say when there is no longer any possibility of appeal. These are crimes of passive corruption and money laundering. This year he migrated to the semi-open regime.
Duque has already served two other stays in prison: between November and December 2014; and from March 2015 to March 2020. Thereafter, he used an electronic ankle bracelet until April 2023.
Throughout his prison sentence, he offered to cooperate with justice, confessed to committing crimes and agreed to return money deposited in foreign accounts. He also made accusations against the current president Lula (PT).
In November, Minister Gilmar Mendes of the STF requested that the judgment on an appeal by Duque against all actions of the Operation Lava Jato and Moro working group be brought before the in-person plenary session of the second panel. There is still no trial date for this case.
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