Entities ask the Court to rebalance contracts in the road market

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Entities in the construction sector filed a public civil action against the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (Dnit) this Wednesday (3/10).


The objective is to rebalance the companies' contracts, distorted by the accumulated adjustment of 64% in asphalt prices this year by Petrobras, and avoid the stoppage of road works being carried out across the country.

The action is signed by the Brazilian B2B Lead Chamber of the Construction Industry (CBIC), the National Association of Road Works Companies (Aneor) and the National Union of the Heavy Construction Industry (Sinicon).

The Dnit itself, in a technical note, recognizes the excessive burden that Petrobras' new pricing policy has generated in the costs of highway construction and maintenance contracts, favoring the risk of its stoppage. In total, there are more than 400 works across Brazil, six of them so essential that, if they are stopped or not completed, they will impact public assets and various segments of the economy, with emphasis on the road construction industry itself. According to Dnit itself, road conservation works alone will be affected by R$3.1 billion.

According to the entities, the judicial measure was the only way found to try to resolve the issue, as attempts at conversations with the responsible bodies were unsuccessful.

Implemented in January 2018, Petrobras' new pricing policy caused monthly increases in the price of petroleum asphalt cement inputs and their derivatives, in the order of 8% per month, and quarterly adjustments, starting in August 2018. Until then , these price variations occurred over longer periods — just twice a year.



This impact generated by the monthly variation in the price of materials severely unbalanced the economic-financial equation of the entire network of contracts signed between the Dnit and companies in the road construction sector, practically making their execution unfeasible.

In the action, the entities request that a new normative instruction be issued by the Dnit, endorsed by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU), in order to implement the necessary conditions to enable the economic-financial rebalancing of the network of highway contracts impacted by the new Petrobras' pricing policy and maintained with the companies represented by the entities.