On December 29, prosecutor Nilton Belli Filho, from the Public Ministry of São Paulo (MP-SP), filed a bankruptcy petition for Viação Itapemirim and the Group's new airline, ITA Transportes Aéreos.
The request from the Public Ministry of São Paulo (MP-SP) still needs to be evaluated by the 1st Bankruptcy and Judicial Reorganization Court of São Paulo, something that can be done this week, due to the recess of the judiciary in recent days.
The promoter justified the inclusion of the ITA Air Transport due to the controller being Sidnei Piva, the same as Viação Itapemirim, the latter being in Judicial Recovery since 2016.
Nilton justified the bankruptcy filing by presenting a possible financial impact of the airline on the bus lines, which have suffered with the company's judicial recovery for years. Indeed, in the last days of 2021, Viação Itapemirim requested the cancellation of 16 lines from the parent company, and 12 from Caiçara, affecting dozens of the company's markets.
“The subsidies now collated (conferred) show that the partner Sidnei Piva would have encouraged, even tacitly what was foreseen in the recovery plan, the air transport activity, including making loans with the appearance of fraud, with the constitution of legal entities abroad through the contribution of large resources that, in theory, can be used to evade foreign exchange and other illicit acts”, said the MP-SP.
“For a long time (…) it points out inconsistencies in the management of the recovery by the managers of the Itapemirim Group, among them the constitution of an airline in default of the creditors in the bankruptcy process and the federal tax authorities, since there are pendencies of a tax nature that sur the BRL 2 billion”, completed the prosecutor citing ITA's debts.
Along with the financial problems, the prosecutor claims that Viação Itapemirim, and the Group as a whole, is not complying with the judicial recovery plan presented in 2019, belatedly since the RJ regime began in 2016.
Nilson Belli asks, in case of refusal of bankruptcy, the immediate removal of Sidnei Piva from the command of the company, pointing out that the businessman caused unjustifiable expenses within the scope of the Judicial Recovery. Belli also asks for the blocking of assets in Sydney and the inclusion of ITA in the RJ of the Itapemirim Group, in his request to the Justice of SP.
Street: The Globe
