Brazil’s Federal Audit Court (TCU) will review the criteria and procedures the government is using to authorise fixed‑odds betting operators, after its own prosecutor’s office filed a case challenging secrecy around licensing files.
Sub‑Prosecutor Lucas Rocha Furtado has asked the court to require the Ministry of Finance and its Prizes and Betting Secretariat (SPA) to provide full transparency in all authorisation processes and to stop blacking out the names of shareholders and ultimate beneficial owners in documents released under the government’s transparency initiative.
In his petition, Furtado argues that what he calls “broad and indiscriminate secrecy” over the identities of partners and ultimate beneficial owners has no basis in the Constitution, the Access to Information Law or the General Data Protection Law and breaches the principles of publicity and morality in a “high‑risk, economically significant” sector.
The identification of partners, managers and ultimate beneficial owners of companies operating under state authorisation “must be treated as public information, necessary for transparency and accountability”, he wrote, adding that full visibility of corporate structures is essential to prevent irregularities, conflicts of interest, regulatory capture and undue favouritism in Brazil’s newly regulated betting market.
Furtado is asking the TCU to open a specific audit of SPA practices to identify the internal rules that allowed systematic redactions, verify whether any explicit legal basis exists for concealing ownership data, and, if none is found, order the Finance Ministry to republish all concluded licensing decisions with complete details of the natural and legal persons behind each licensed operator.
As a precautionary measure, he has urged the court to bar the ministry and SPA from continuing to impose “generalised secrecy” over the names of partners, managers and beneficial owners, except in narrowly defined and properly justified cases, and to send the case to the Federal Prosecution Service and the Attorney General’s Office if repeated unjustified secrecy is confirmed.
Earlier this month the Ministry of Finance announced that it would proactively disclose all completed processes related to the authorization for commercial operation of fixed-odds betting. More than 25,000 documents will soon be publicly available on the ministry’s website. The announcement, made by Minister Dario Durigan alongside the Secretary of Prizes and Betting (SPA), Daniele Cardoso, increases active transparency in the regulation of the sector.
The post Audit Court prosecutor pushes for full transparency on owners of licensed betting operators in Brazil appeared first on G3 Newswire.
Brazil’s Federal Audit Court (TCU) will review the criteria and procedures the government is using to authorise fixed‑odds betting operators, after its own prosecutor’s office filed a case challenging secrecy around licensing files. Sub‑Prosecutor Lucas Rocha Furtado has asked the court to require the Ministry of Finance and its Prizes and Betting Secretariat (SPA) to…
The post Audit Court prosecutor pushes for full transparency on owners of licensed betting operators in Brazil appeared first on G3 Newswire.