Explaining Brazil #290: Ban the beef bros?

Author

Euan Marshall
April 24, 2024 • Reading Time: 4 minutes

In 2017, Brazilian politics was rocked by a corruption scandal that reached all the way up to the president’s office, and very nearly brought down the government of the time. In May of that year, the Brazilian press revealed that billionaire Joesley Batista, who along with his equally billionaire brother Wesley ran JBS, the world’s largest meat-packing company, had secretly recorded conversations with then-President Michel Temer.

The recording was leaked shortly after, showing President Temer apparently condoning the payment of hush money to former House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who was in prison at the time.

Unsurprisingly, Brazil went bananas, with the president refusing to resign only because he knew he had enough allies in Congress to block an impeachment vote.

But the plot was about to thicken even more, as prosecutors accused the Batista brothers of using their prior knowledge that the stock market would go haywire to sell off and buy back shares in their own company, for huge profit.

Amid the scandal, Joesley and Wesley stepped down from the JBS board and kept a low profile as they were being investigated for insider trading, until they were eventually exonerated in 2023.

And now, in 2024, the Batista brothers might well be back.

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This episode used music from Uppbeat and Envato. License codes: Classicality by Stockwaves (X5KHGMR2NB) , Aspire por Pryces (B6TUQLVYOWVKY02S), Drama by Andy_Grey (N5D4K7L2P9), and Prowler by SCOREWIZARDS (CLU3WEXHY9).

In this episode:

  • Kimberly Spell is the executive director of Ban the Batistas, an advocacy group formed in November 2023 to oppose JBS’s plans to hold an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. Ms. Spell is also senior vice president at Actum.

Background reading:

  • In a securities filing at the end of March, meat-processing giant JBS told regulators it plans to expand its board from nine to 11 seats to make room for brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista.

  • The Batista brothers were exonerated from 2017 insider trading charges, when they were accused of taking advantage of an imminent plea deal to sell off stocks in their own company and make major profit amid a market crash. 

  • JBS was responsible for clearing about 100,000 hectares of vegetation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes between 2019 and 2021. Environmentalists have called on the Brazilian development bank BNDES, which owns almost 21 percent of JBS, to take action to help curb deforestation and emissions.

  • A 2023 study by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) on slave labor in Brazil’s cattle industry found that one-third of companies using slave labor in the country’s Pantanal wetlands have trade links with JBS

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