On September 2, 2026, the 1st Panel of CARF’s Superior Chamber of Tax Appeals ruled in Petrobras’ favor in a tax dispute involving approximately R$ 3,400 million, related to IRPJ and CSLL for fiscal year 2018 and the application of Transfer Pricing rules to the importation of oil and natural gas production platforms.
The original assessment totaled approximately R$ 4,480 million, although part of it had already been settled. The amount still in dispute before CARF was approximately R$ 3,400 million.
The technical issue: adjustments applied under the PIC method
The discussion focused on determining the benchmark price for charter contracts using the Comparable Uncontrolled Price (PIC) method.
The Federal Revenue Service challenged the taxpayer’s calculations and introduced adjustments related, among other aspects, to the term of the contracts and the rate of return on investments. For the latter, it used ROACE (Return on Average Capital Employed) as a proxy for expected profitability.
In previous cases, ordinary panels of CARF had already deemed the use of ROACE as a proxy for the expected rate of return on investments in platforms to be inappropriate. Among the main objections was that the indicator reflected consolidated results of corporate groups and measured actual performance, rather than the expected return on a specific investment.
This distinction is relevant because an indicator based on a group’s overall performance may include assets, results, and activities different from those specifically related to the platform or contract under review, thereby reducing its ability to adequately represent the economic conditions of the transaction.
Repsol had already obtained a favorable ruling
The Petrobras case is not the first favorable ruling by the Câmara Superior on this dispute.
In August 2026, Repsol obtained a favorable ruling from the CARF’s Câmara Superior in a case related to the importation and chartering of platforms. The use of ROACE to make adjustments to the benchmark price was also discussed in that dispute.
The panel considered that the indicator was not appropriate because it reflected the overall performance of the companies owning the platforms and not necessarily the specific return on each investment analyzed.
In this regard, the Petrobras decision reinforces a line of reasoning that had already appeared in ordinary decisions and was subsequently adopted by the Superior Chamber in the Repsol case.
What does this mean for the oil and gas sector?
The dispute highlights the importance of ensuring that the indicators used to make comparability adjustments maintain a sufficiently direct economic relationship with the transaction under analysis.
A consolidated profitability indicator may not be suitable for estimating the return on an individual transaction when it incorporates assets, results, and activities different from those intended for comparison.
For companies in the oil and gas sector with high-value intercompany transactions, these precedents highlight the importance of reviewing not only the selected Transfer Pricing method but also the economic consistency of the indicators and adjustments used to determine the benchmark price.
Likewise, it is important to avoid an overly broad interpretation of these decisions. CARF has not established a general prohibition on ROACE as an indicator, but rather has questioned its use in this type of adjustment when the benchmark employed does not sufficiently accurately reflect the specific transaction under review.
It should also be noted that the Petrobras dispute pertains to the 2018 fiscal year. Therefore, its legal effects must be analyzed within the transfer pricing regulatory framework applicable to that period and should not be automatically carried over to transactions subject to the current Brazilian regime.
At TPC Group, we analyze the most recent case law on transfer pricing and assess its impact on intercompany transactions, taking into account the economic characteristics of each transaction and the corresponding tax period.
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