This Wednesday (March 11), a decision by Justice Dias Toffoli ordering the definitive closure of the investigation against Transparency International (Pet. 12,061) in the Supreme Court was published (read the full document below). The decision brings an end to an episode of judicial harassment that has dragged on for years against the organization.
Since October 2024, the Office of the Prosecutor General had already expressed its support for closing the procedure, pointing to the absence of the minimum elements necessary to justify the continuation of the investigation and the lack of jurisdiction of Justice Dias Toffoli to conduct it.
The investigation in the Supreme Court forms part of a broader context of defamatory attacks and relentless harassment against Transparency International that began in 2019, when, for the first time, the fake news emerged that TI would receive or manage funds from leniency agreements in the country.
In October 2019, TI Brazil submitted a report to the OECD denouncing serious setbacks in the fight against corruption in Brazil. Among the facts cited in the report was the opening of the “Fake News Inquiry,” initiated ex officio by the then president of the Supreme Court, Justice Dias Toffoli. Among the first acts of the inquiry’s rapporteur, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, was the suspension of a Federal Revenue audit that included the then wives of Justice Dias Toffoli himself and of Justice Gilmar Mendes. A few days later, in a plenary session of the Supreme Court, Justice Gilmar Mendes attacked the OECD and Transparency International and publicly launched — for the first time — the fake news that our organization would receive funds from leniency agreements. This false information has for seven years fueled defamatory campaigns against Transparency International.
The truth, reiterated and documented countless times, is simple: TI has never received a single cent from any leniency agreement or from any company or public authority linked to Operation Car Wash or any other anti‑corruption operation in Brazil. It did not receive such funds because it systematically rejected all offers of this nature, whether from public or private actors genuinely interested in strengthening the fight against corruption, or from those seeking to clean their image or politically capitalize on the agenda.
On the contrary, the organization’s work focused on studying and proposing mechanisms of transparency and governance for allocating compensatory resources resulting from major corruption cases, so they could effectively reach victims, restore violated rights, and strengthen public integrity. It was precisely the distortion of this work that became the main method used in professional disinformation.
Despite repeated rebuttals — documented and presented by Transparency International, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Court of Accounts and the national and international press — the fake news continued to be politically exploited by powerful authorities and widely amplified, with hundreds of articles and thousands of posts by blogs and influencers funded by corrupt companies, their law firms, and even public funds.
These campaigns also involved direct attacks by companies such as J&F, the owner of JBS and a key player in one of the largest corruption schemes in history, which likewise spread disinformation and promoted harassment against Transparency International.
At the end of 2023, TI Brazil submitted a new complaint to the OECD for serious violations of the Anti‑Bribery Convention, once again involving Justice Dias Toffoli — this time related to the total annulment of the evidence from the Odebrecht/Novonor leniency agreement. What began as a defamation campaign then evolved into something even more serious: the use of the judicial system as an instrument of intimidation against a civil society organization. Shortly after this second complaint, the justice opened an investigation in the Supreme Court against Transparency International, based on a criminal complaint filed in 2020 against TI and members of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office by federal congressman and former president of the Workers’ Party (PT), Rui Falcão, represented by lawyer Marco Aurélio de Carvalho, leader of the “Prerrogativas” group. The complaint repeated exactly the same fake news that, since 2019, has been disseminated to attack TI, ignoring even the official rebuttals issued by the Office of the Prosecutor General itself.
Today, in light of the extremely serious revelations about the conduct of authorities, companies, lawyers and communicators who, in recent years, led incessant and coordinated campaigns against Transparency International, society can more clearly understand the extent of the interests at play — and the importance of the resilient fight against corruption.
TI Brazil has faced attacks from the left, the right, and above all, from the top. We were never intimidated. We never backed down. We never deviated one millimeter from our mission to expose and combat corruption. And we will continue. Next week, we will submit a new complaint to the OECD Anti‑Bribery Working Group involving the leadership of the Judiciary.
TI has resisted — and will continue to resist — but the cost of judicial harassment is extremely high, and many organizations and individuals around the world do not withstand it. That is why we continue fighting, alongside partners such as the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji), for Brazil to approve a law against judicial harassment, inspired by the recently adopted European anti‑SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) legislation. Brazil must protect activists, journalists, public servants, and citizens who expose corruption in defense of the public interest.
We deeply thank all the people and institutions that stood by our side supporting Transparency International, our team, and our cause. We are especially grateful to the teams at the law firms BFBM and Davi Tangerino Advogados, who, with generosity, competence and a genuine commitment to justice, defended TI Brazil.
We will continue, with an ever broader and stronger movement, fighting against corruption — because our cause is, above all, a fight for rights and justice.
Full decision
Read below the decision by Justice Dias Toffoli ordering the closure of the investigation against Transparency International:
