⁍ Shareholders in JBS SA cleared the way for the Brazilian food processor to sue its own controlling stakeholders and certain former managers.

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⁍ The vote was a win for JBS’s top minority shareholder, national development bank BNDES.

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⁍ BNDES has been trying to hold the heirs of the company’s founder, Wesley and Joesley Batista, accountable for a plunge in JBS’ stock in 2017.

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– In what Reuters calls “a rare victory for shareholder activism in Latin America’s largest economy,” shareholders in JBS, the Brazilian food processor, voted Friday to allow the company to sue its own controlling stakeholders and certain former managers. The vote was a win for JBS’ top minority shareholder, national development bank BNDES, which has been trying to hold the heirs of the company’s founder, Wesley Batista, accountable for a plunge in JBS’ stock in 2017 after they confessed to bribing multiple government officials. The development bank’s investment arm, BNDESPar, the development bank’s investment arm which holds the JBS shares, did not immediately comment on the vote. But its parent company, J&F Investimentos—which could be a target of the complaint approved on Friday—said the resolution passed solely thanks to BNDESPar, which had proposed it in the first place. BNDESPar had previously secured an arbitration court ruling barring J&F, JBS’ biggest shareholder, from voting on the resolution. Sources familiar with approval of the resolution said some other minority shareholders had sought to split their vote, siding with BNDESPar in terms of suing JBS’s former managers but not J&F, since they are already pursuing the parent company in a separate arbitration proceeding.