After graduating from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, André Esteves joined Pactual and within “a year he was a member of the bank’s foreign debt trading team, and within two he was managing IPOs and M&A deals.” In 1992, Esteves made a partner for helping the bank “to post a 59 percent return on capital”. UBS purchased Pactual in December 2006, and in June 2008, Esteves left the bank along with key Brazilian partners to create BTG, a global investment company. In April 2009, Esteves, along with other partners, purchased Pactual back from UBS for $2.5 billion. He discussed these events in 2013 in an interview for the Creating Emerging Markets project at the Harvard Business School. Esteves arrives at his office as early as 6:30 AM and “often calls partners together for meetings as late as 10:00 p.m.” He also holds regular study meetings with BTG Pactual directors at his home.

Arthur Rutishauser in Sonntagszeitung argued that the way Esteves acquired 27% of his bank is an example of an insider case: Esteves sold the bank in 2006 for 3.1 billion SFr to UBS, where Huw Jenkins was a key decision maker and heavily involved in that transaction. Esteves later repurchased Pactual back in 2009 for 2.5 billion SF after being allowed to leave UBS to set up BTG. Huw Jenkins was ejected from UBS in 2007 and disappeared then resurface as a senior partner and board member at BTG Pactual in 2010.

In April 2012, André Esteves was fined €350,000 for insider trading in Italy and officials “also froze €4.2 million of Mr. Esteves’s personal assets and barred him from acting as an officer in an Italian company for six months.” Italy’s Consob did this because, they said, that “the 43-year-old Latin American banker bought the shares in November 2007 knowing that the group was planning to enter a joint venture with Brazilian rival JBS.” This case was closed and there was no impact to the public offering. In 2012, penalties for André Esteves’ insider trading “force[d] the bank to amend its prospectus, give investors the option to reconsidering bids for BTG shares, and put a cloud over one of this year’s highest-profile bank deals.” In “a statement, BTG Pactual said Esteves believed the allegations had no merit and was determined to appeal the decision.” However, Esteves did not appeal, citing cost and a loss of time as his reasons.

In 2013, Charles Rosier, a partner of BTG Pactual, was convicted in the largest insider trading case in the history of France. While at UBS, at the end of March and early April 2008, he and his cousin Joseph Raad used inside information to purchase shares and options in Geodis just before the announcement of a takeover bid. Of significance, Rosier worked at UBS when he participated in the insider trades when André Esteves, now CEO, partner and director of BTG Pactual, still worked for UBS as head of fixed income in charge of $1.7 trillion USD. Esteves had also committed inside trades while at UBS only a few months earlier in November 2007. Also of significance, Huw Jenkins, partner and director and chairman of BTG Pactual and formerly CEO of UBS Investment Bank, was a consultant to UBS at the same time.

On 19 June 2015, Marcelo Odebrecht, the CEO of Brazil’s largest construction company was arrested by Brazilian Federal Police. Odebrecht was arrested on allegations of fraud, corruption, money laundering and organized crime relating to contracts worth billions of dollars with the rigs company Sete Brazil [pt] and the state oil company Petrobras. While in detention, Odebrecht attempted to pass a handwritten note to his lawyers that mentioned André Esteves, thus potentially implicating BTG Pactual and Esteves in Lava Jato. One of Sete’s largest shareholders is BTG Pactual, headed by CEO André Esteves. In the handwritten note, Odebrecht asked his lawyers to “destroy rigs’ email.” Sete Brasil was founded to facilitate and enable the construction of ultra-deep water drilling rigs in the country. Seven companies became investors, the pension funds: Petros, Previ, Funcef and Valia, besides the banks Santander, Bradesco and BTG Pactual. Then Petrobras joined the investors. Development bank BNDES, which had previously agreed to extend financing, withheld funds after former Sete Brasil COO Pedro Barusco testified in late 2014 that he accepted bribes in exchange for awarding contracts as part of a wider corruption probe known as Lava Jato (Carwash in Portuguese). In the first quarter of 2015, BTG Pactual recorded a provision for the impairment to the investment equivalent to approximately 25% of its book value, which had a gross negative impact on revenues of R$280million.

On 25 November 2015, Esteves was arrested as part of a scandal investigation into Petrobras after he was investigated for his bank’s dealings with the oil company. On November 29, 2015 it was reported that the Brazilian Supreme Court decided to extend his arrest, according to Esteves’s lawyer. According to the same report by Bloomberg News, BTG Pactual’s partners were in talks to buy Esteves’s 22% to 24% stake including a “golden share” which had given him control of the firm.

Three weeks later, on December 17, 2015, Esteves was released from prison. BTG’s bonds and shares subsequently increased. Esteves had to remain at home until he found employment, the Brazilian supreme court said in a statement. Judge Teori Zavascki ruled that Esteves could not have any management role in any of the companies being investigated as part of the corruption probe. The names of those companies were kept sealed. Shares of BTG rose 7.7 percent to 15.62 reais at 3:55 p.m. in Sao Paulo, after gaining as much as 12 percent. The company’s $1 billion of notes due 2020 rose 3.1 cents to 72.15 cents on the dollar. Esteves’s attorneys argued that he was only arrested because he’s one of the wealthiest people in Brazil, according to court documents filed this month with the supreme court.

Already considered one of the biggest judicial errors in Brazil, Esteves was acquitted of all charges. On June 28th, 2017, the Chief Justice of the Brazilian Supreme Court, Gilmar Mendes, referred André Esteves’ case during the plenary session of the Supreme Court, “This is a fact of which we are witnesses. I must praise the loyalty that Minister Teori Zavascki also had with this case, when he verified this is a clear case of unequivocal judicial error, about which no one speaks because only success is spoken.” Minister Sepúlveda Pertence was arguing and used the following expression: ‘I am facing a scabrous case of judicial error’. Minister Zavascki convinced himself and decided monocratically. “How many may be in the same situation as Esteves?”

On September 1st, 2017, federal prosecutors asked Esteves acquittal on the grounds that there is no evidence that he participated in the criminal scheme. The agency gave the Federal Court in Brasilia the closing arguments in the criminal case in which he presents the conclusions based on the evidence and testimony made. The Federal Prosecution Service says it has not found evidence that Esteves committed the crime of obstruction of justice. “André was improperly involved in this process, the instruction proved this completely,” said Antônio Carlos de Almeida Castro, Esteves’s lawyer, on the request for acquittal.

On July 12th, 2018, Judge Ricardo Leite of the 10th Federal Court of Brasilia acquitted Esteves of the accusations of obstruction of justice for confirmation that there was insufficient evidence to corroborate the allegations. Following the acquittal, Esteves’ lawyers stated that “they respect the duty of the State to investigate, however, any investigation must be conducted within due process of law, without spectacularization and without excesses. In this case, Esteves’ initial arrest was completely unnecessary and abusive.”