Accounting Enforcement, Corporate Governance, and Solvency Crises: A Multiple-Case Study of Companies under Judicial Reorganization in Brazil

This article investigates the accounting, regulatory, and institutional factors that contributed to the collapse of Brazilian publicly traded companies that filed for judicial reorganization between 2020 and 2024. Grounded in a critical theoretical framework that combines institutional accounting, weak enforcement, and symbolic governance, the study analyzes the cases of Americanas S.A., Light S.A., Oi S.A., and AgroGalaxy Participações S.A. The methodology applied is a multiple-case study, supported by document analysis of financial statements, audit reports, regulatory decisions, and judicial records. The findings reveal recurrent patterns of financial opacity, delayed loss recognition, improper asset capitalization, and underreporting of liabilities. Moreover, ineffective regulatory oversight by institutions such as the CVM, ANEEL, and ANATEL, as well as structural weaknesses in corporate governance, were consistently observed. The analysis confirms the hypothesis that accounting practices, although formally compliant with IFRS, were strategically used to misrepresent firms’ financial conditions. The study concludes that the informational crisis within the Brazilian capital market is systemic and requires institutional reforms to enhance accounting enforcement, coordinated regulatory supervision, and governance of digital reporting systems. This research contributes to the debate on financial information quality in low-accountability environments and offers proposals to rebuild investor trust in emerging markets.