Braskem has already paid out billions of reais in settlement agreements for the Maceió disaster. So why did BRKM5 shares plunge nearly 15% intraday and close the June 12 session down 9.23% at R$ 8.46, marking the steepest drop on the Ibovespa that day? The answer separates investors who understand what actually happened from those who only read the headline: a criminal proceeding is not the same thing as civil liability. The money Braskem paid to residents settled the civil side. What changed on June 12, 2026, is that the Federal Court of Alagoas accepted charges from the Federal Prosecutors' Office (MPF) and named the company—alongside 13 individuals—a defendant in a criminal lawsuit. That changes the nature of the risk shareholders carry.
Becoming a defendant means the judge recognized that there is sufficient evidence of a crime for the case to move forward. It is not a conviction; it is the formal beginning of the criminal phase. And here is the point the market priced in immediately: the criminal phase opens up a risk front that was not on the balance sheet, was not provisioned for, and has no set timeline to conclude.
Civil Versus Criminal: The Distinction Driving the Price
For investors who do not follow the details closely, it is worth breaking this down. Two separate legal tracks are running concurrently regarding the Maceió disaster, and they carry entirely different consequences for the BRKM5 investment thesis.
On the civil front, the issue is money: compensating those who lost their homes, businesses, or quality of life. Braskem has struck multibillion-reais settlements, established relocation and compensation programs, and provisioned a large portion of this liability on its balance sheet. As uncomfortable as the figures are, the liability is, in theory, known and measurable. The market has known about this for years and has already priced it in.
On the criminal front, the issue is penal accountability: whether someone committed a crime, acted with intent or accepted the risk, and must answer for it. Here, the terms change entirely. Individuals—including former Braskem executives and public officials from IMA-AL (Alagoas's Environmental Institute)—now face criminal charges carrying potential prison sentences. As a corporate entity, Braskem could face additional criminal fines, restrictions on environmental and operational licenses, and severe reputational damage.
It is this latter point that hurts the investment thesis. One of the pillars of Braskem's recovery narrative was: "We have already confronted Maceió, we have paid, and now we are looking forward." The criminal lawsuit refutes that narrative. It states, in the language of the state, that this was not an unfortunate geological accident—it was criminal conduct that may have been sustained by misleading documents. That reopens a wound the market considered partially healed.
The indictment accepted by the 1st Federal Court of Alagoas (Judge Sérgio Silva Feitosa) brings four fronts of criminal allegations:
- Qualified environmental pollution—degradation that harmed human health and forced the displacement of tens of thousands of people.
- Preparation of false or misleading environmental studies—26 episodes. This is the most serious allegation: the charge claims false reports were presented to authorities to maintain rock salt mining despite warning signs of risk. If proven, this eliminates the argument of an "accident" and establishes intent.
- Irregular extraction of mineral resources—mining rock salt outside permitted parameters.
- Qualified damage to public property.
The judge accepted the charges partially, recognizing the statute of limitations for older conduct—meaning part of the case was dismissed due to the passage of time. However, the core of the case moved forward. Braskem, 13 former executives, and 4 IMA-AL officials have become defendants.
Everything Compounds: Today's Financial Context
The criminal lawsuit does not arrive at a comfortable moment. It compounds a stack of pressures that were already eroding the BRKM5 investment case:
Rock-bottom petrochemical margins. The global petrochemical industry is mired in a downcycle: spreads (the difference between petrochemical product prices and the cost of naphtha feedstock) are at historical lows. Global overcapacity, particularly out of Asia, has compressed profitability across the entire sector. As a commodity petrochemical producer, Braskem feels this directly in its cash generation.
Change in control. In June 2026, control of the company passed to Shine I via a tender offer (OPA)—a topic we covered in a separate article here on Rico aos Poucos. The new controlling shareholder inherits precisely this package: compressed margins, the Maceió liability, and now, an ongoing criminal lawsuit. For minority shareholders, the takeaway is twofold: on one hand, new control can bring discipline and fresh momentum; on the other, no one buys an asset like this without weighing the liabilities attached to it.
Debt maturities on the horizon. Braskem carries significant debt, with maturities to manage over the coming years. Weak margins combined with heavy debt and open legal risk is the exact combination that spooks both creditors and shareholders, as it drives up the company's cost of capital.
Is the Maceió liability growing again? Part of it is already provisioned on the civil side. But the criminal lawsuit could generate new or additional liabilities: criminal fines, potential new remediation obligations, and the diffuse—yet real—cost of a proceeding that keeps the company's name tied to the largest urban environmental crime in Brazil's history. That type of contingency is difficult to provision precisely because it lacks a fixed value or timeline.
What to Expect Now on the Procedural Front
With the charges accepted, the next legal steps involve the formal citation of defendants (notification to present a defense) and, in specific cases, hearings for proposed conditional suspension of proceedings—a legal mechanism that can suspend the process under certain conditions. None of this happens quickly. Large-scale criminal trials drag on for years, with appeals across multiple courts. For shareholders, the practical meaning is this: the legal risk of Maceió no longer has an expiration date in sight. It becomes a long-term companion to the investment thesis.
At R$ 8.46, BRKM5 already discounts a lot of bad news—weak margins, debt, and the stigma of Maceió. Anyone buying here is betting that the worst is already priced in and that the ownership transition will bring reorganization. That may work out. But the criminal case adds a variable with no definable fair price: there is no way to calculate the present value of a criminal conviction that may or may not materialize years from now.
For average retail investors, this means BRKM5 is not a calm portfolio holding. It is a stock for those with a long investment horizon, a stomach for extreme volatility (remember: -15% in a single session), and an understanding that they are participating in a turnaround bet rather than a predictable investment. This is not the time to "buy the panic" simply because the price dropped—buying the panic without understanding what is on the table is like trying to catch a falling knife in the dark. If you cannot clearly explain the difference between the civil and criminal aspects of this case, you probably should not have exposure to it.
What changed was not the scale of the tragedy—that was already known. What changed is the legal nature of the risk: shifting from civil (monetary, provisioned) to criminal (intent, fines, reputation, no fixed timeline). Add in rock-bottom petrochemical margins, significant debt, and a change in control, and you understand why the market reacted with a 9% drop. BRKM5 remains a possible recovery story, but with an added risk that cannot simply be ignored.
