Ann: Proposed increase to J&F Guarantee, page-17

This article from AFR sheds a different light on this WEF Partner:

How Brazilian bribes got JBS Australia started
Myriam Robin June 1,2022

Thehistory of global meat company JBS is so strewn with villainy you do wonderwhere to start.

In 2017,it paid a $4.5 billion fine after its billionaire owners and then-leaders Wesley and JoesleyBatista admitted the company had bribed 1829 Brazilian politicians.Soon after, both spent time in jail on insider trading charges.

USactivists decry JBS’ animal welfare standards.Regulators raise alarm over its safety practices. It has attracted scrutiny andfierce opposition from the US to its native Brazil.

Butfar less so here, where its burgeoning and thriving local endeavours havemultiple times sailed through Foreign Investment Review Board approval.

Whathappens elsewhere shouldn't affect the company here, its local managers havespent years insisting, as the local operations are entirely removed fromanything dodgy.

OnWednesday, JBS Australia chief Brent Eastwood again trottedout the “nothing to do with us” line in The Australian, ahead of akeynote speech where he stressed the same points and lamented the shots of“keyboard warriors”, “disgruntled under bidders”, and “fiction writers”.

“Whathappened in Brazil no one can deny,” he said, though it happened “many yearsago” and “the people that were involved in that are not on the board in anyway, shape or form”.

“Australiawas not involved in anything,” he insisted. And truly, no one could suggestanyone working for or on behalf of JBS Australia paid off officials in Brazilor took part in any other offshore malfeasance.

Butthese historic bribes had a purpose, namely: the extension of cheap financingfrom the Brazilian state.

As FourCorners recently outlined, that financing went directly to fundingJBS’ global expansion, including the 2008 purchase of Tasman Group inAustralia, as Joesley Batista told Brazilian prosecutors. It also financed the2007 purchase of US company Swift Foods, whose Australian subsidiary providedJBS with its first local foothold.

Alloperational involvement of Joesley and Wesley Batista has now ceased. But theyremain major shareholders, profiting from the global expansion facilitated withcorruptly obtained cheap loans.

Asfor the “independent board” referred to by Eastwood, it presently seats familypatriarch and JBS founder Jose Batista Sobrinho. Eastwood himselfreports to family scion Wesley Batista Filho, operational head ofOceana and Wesley senior’s son.

Neitherthe grandfather nor the grandson were implicated in the Brazilian corruptionscandal. But to put this in local context, consider if the revelations ofgovernance failures at Crown Resorts were solved not by the relativelylily-white James Packer’s forced divestment, but merely theappointment of his entirely blameless and publicly beloved mother Roslyn tohandle his Crown affairs instead. Turns out our gambling regulators have teethafter all!

Eastwood,for what it’s worth, is a JBS insider of multiple decades. When he wasappointed chief operating officer of JBS’ Queensland and New South Walesdivisions in 2012, his promotion (with two others) earned a laudatory commentfrom Wesley Batista himself.

“These three professionals are completely aligned with ourculture and management style,” the release said.

High praise at the time, but given its originator,not an accolade likely to make the resume.