(Bloomberg) — Brazil’s securities regulator accused former Americanas SA chief executive officer Miguel Gutierrez and seven others of insider trading, alleging they improperly used privileged information before the disclosure of a major accounting scandal at the retail giant.
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The country’s securities and exchange commission said in a statement late Friday that it gathered “robust” evidence supporting the allegations as part of an investigation that has now concluded. Gutierrez and the other executives will now have the chance to respond, it said.
Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office previously accused Gutierrez and his team of carrying out a multiyear accounting fraud estimated at 25 billion reais ($4.4 billion), one of the biggest corporate scandals in Brazilian history. Authorities have alleged that company executives offloaded shares they held once they realized Gutierrez would be ousted as CEO, which happened months before the fraud became public in early 2023.
In an emailed statement, Gutierrez’s legal team said that it had not seen the specific allegations and couldn’t comment directly. But he “never acted illegally” and carried out the sale of shares “fully within current regulations,” the statement read.
The former CEO, who spent more than two decades at the company, was briefly detained in Spain in June as part of an investigation into the scandal. He was released after testifying.
–With assistance from Daniel Cancel.
(Updates with statement from Gutierrez’s legal team in fourth paragraph.)
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