Interunion Papa-Tudo liquidator opens online creditor lookup

The liquidator of Interunion Capitalização S.A. – Em Liquidação Extrajudicial, issuer of the Papa-Tudo capitalisation bonds, has made an online lookup available for creditors and consumers listed in the Quadro Geral de Credores, Brazil's Susep said. The lookup is made using the holder's CPF or CNPJ. Where a credit exists in the consulter's name, the system sets out the instructions for receiving payment, without the need to attend the company's head office.

Further information can be obtained by email at [email protected] or by telephone on (21) 67877-5322 and (21) 98094-0737, according to the notice.

Susep intervened in Interunion Capitalização in June 1996 because the company's assets were not sufficient to pay the redemption of bonds bought by thousands of small investors competing for prizes. Extrajudicial liquidation was decreed in 1998, and the process has run for about 28 years.

In December 2002 there were more than 150 million unpaid bonds, totalling about R$250m, as well as R$2.7m in prizes. Debt in taxes such as income tax and social contribution came to almost R$40m.

In the criminal proceedings, Artur Osório Marques Falk, the banker behind Interunion Capitalização, was sentenced to nine years and two months' imprisonment, initially in a closed regime, for fraudulent management and the issuance of bonds without financial backing, offences under Law 7.492/1986 on crimes against the national financial system. According to the accusation, between January 1994 and December 1995 he harmed millions of Papa-Tudo buyers. The Superior Tribunal de Justiça upheld the conviction.

The liquidation itself was marked by turbulence. In 2006 an action by the Ministério Público Federal seeking the removal of the then Susep superintendent, Renê Garcia, prompted a public exchange of accusations between the liquidator at the time, Renato Sobrosa Cordeiro, and his predecessor, Antônio Roberto Telles de Menezes, who had been dismissed by Susep in July that year. At that point Falk held one third of Interunion's shares and Bolmeny, a shareholder since 1997, the other two thirds.

Papa-Tudo was a capitalisation bond sold at a low price through lottery houses and Correios branches, and as a capitalisation bond rather than a lottery it was regulated by Susep. The source describes the online lookup as a concrete step for former buyers, or their heirs, to receive what is owed to them.