Behind the scenes in Brazil’s Congress, Michel Temer is often remembered as an exceptional political dealmaker. He was Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies three times and, thanks to those skills, managed to secure the alliance that made him Dilma Rousseff’s vice president in 2010. Later, using those same abilities, he helped orchestrate the maneuver that brought him to the presidency of Brazil on May 12, 2016, after the controversial impeachment of Rousseff. In his book A escolha (The Choice), Temer credited Eduardo Cunha with Rousseff’s removal. Cunha, for his part, described the former president as having “fought” by every means to oust Dilma.
Temer only left office when he handed the presidential sash to Jair Bolsonaro in January 2019. Once “unemployed,” the MDB leader decided to resume a profession he had left behind three decades earlier: law. The former president had graduated from Law School at the University of São Paulo (USP), one of the country’s most prestigious, and was the author of important books on Constitutional Law, but he had spent decades without practicing. After leaving office, Temer revived his legal career—but not just in any field.
The project Big Tech’s Invisible Hand—an investigation led by Agência Pública and the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP)—traced the former president’s activities in Brasília and before Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court. Among other things, Temer began representing tech companies with cases before the Court. His involvement was publicly acknowledged but barely shows up in official records.
For about two months, this reporting team made several requests for an interview with the former president to ask about his work in the sector. Messages were sent to one of his advisers and his secretary starting June 5. Only on August 4 did his advisory team send a message: “To put the matter to rest, Dr. Michel Temer informs that he does not discuss matters of interest to his clients with other people. Thank you for your understanding.”
When CLIP, a member of this journalistic alliance, contacted Temer’s team, we explained that we were reporting on his work as a lawyer and following his activities in the tech sector. The former president was also informed—via email to his staff—that we had found a case in which he represented Gradiente, since a power of attorney listed him, though his exact role was unclear. He was also informed that he had been presented publicly as Google’s lawyer, but no case could be located in which he acted for the company before the Supreme Court. Therefore, there were still questions to be answered.
In late June 2023, Google announced Temer’s hiring during negotiations over the so-called “Fake News Bill.” The month before, in May 2023, then-Speaker of the Chamber Arthur Lira had asked the Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Police to investigate Google and Telegram’s campaign against the bill. Among other actions, the companies published texts on their platforms urging users to oppose the legislation. Google, for example, used the homepage of its search engine to warn that the bill “could make the internet worse” and “increase confusion over what is true and what is false in Brazil.” After heavy pressure, the bill was never voted on (see Brazil’s Fake News Bill story).
This investigation, however, shows that Temer’s hiring actually occurred earlier. In early May of that year, at Lira’s request, company executives began being investigated by the Federal Police for exerting pressure against the bill. Executives were even summoned to testify. In addition to the Federal Police probe, Brazil’s antitrust regulator (Cade) and the National Consumer Secretariat also opened inquiries into the episode. According to people familiar with the crisis who requested anonymity, the decision to hire Temer was made so that he could act as an intermediary in all these proceedings.
Official legal representation, however, was left to other lawyers. Temer also acted on the company’s behalf with the bill’s rapporteur, federal deputy Orlando Silva (PCdoB). The congressman—one of the few willing to give an interview—recalled the episode and told this alliance that in June 2023 he received a call from former president Temer, asking him to come to his São Paulo office to talk.
Temer has maintained an office on Pedroso Alvarenga Street, in the Itaim Bibi neighborhood of São Paulo’s south side, for years. He has used it for meetings since his days as a deputy and even during his presidency. Upon arriving there, Silva said, Temer told him that he “was following the conflict” between tech companies, Congress, and the government over the bill regulating and holding social media accountable. According to Silva, Temer said he “wanted to help” and asked whether Silva would agree to meet with Google executives.
“I went to his office [Temer’s] and we talked a bit. He said he was following the debate in Congress, that he had dialogue skills, and that he was available. He asked if he could bring in Google executives,” Silva recounted. Temer never said he was the company’s lawyer nor that he had been hired by them for the case.
A few days later, Silva said, a second meeting was held in Temer’s office. This time, alongside the former president, was Fábio Coelho, president of Google Brazil. They discussed ideas, focusing on liability. “They [Google] argued that companies should not be held responsible. I countered every point. They promised to send texts and did, but they were the same ones they had already circulated,” Silva said, noting he already had contact with the company’s executives. After that, Silva said, he never again dealt with Temer on the issue.
Temer’s hiring was revealed by journalist Patrícia Campos Mello in Folha de S. Paulo in June 2023. At the time, Google’s press office said: “Like other companies and organizations, we hire agencies and specialized consultants to help mediate our dialogue with public authorities so we can bring our contributions to politicians and lawmakers, especially on important and technical issues such as drafting new laws.” This reporting team learned that Temer’s contract lasted about six months and ended once the situation was “under control.”
Asked again, Google said it had nothing to add beyond what was stated about Temer’s hiring in 2023. In March 2024, the Federal Police investigation into Google and Telegram’s activities was closed at the request of the Attorney General’s Office, though the final police report noted they considered the companies’ actions an abuse of economic power. The cases at Cade and the Consumer Protection Secretariat remain open.
Opinion for Huawei
Before the Google episode, Temer had already been called in during another crisis. For that reason, behind the scenes in Congress, he is known as a “crisis lobbyist,” though he denies engaging in influence-peddling when asked. In 2021, when Jair Bolsonaro’s government sought to bar Chinese company Huawei from bidding in the 5G spectrum auction, the company also turned to Temer to draft a legal opinion on its entry into the Brazilian market.
On September 27, 2021, former president Temer was asked about the case on the TV program Roda Viva and responded to questions about lobbying. “I gave a legal opinion. You know I’m from the legal field and I have to make a living. Since I’m back at my office, I’ve resumed practicing law and I’ve been asked for opinions. Not just for them [Huawei]. I gave other opinions. In fact, I gave one to a company that provides services to Huawei. And if they told me Huawei was seeking legal services, I would do it gladly. Professionally, it’s perfectly possible, but that’s not the case. Obviously, I don’t do lobbying. I recall that a columnist, I don’t know who, said: ‘Temer was hired to lobby.’ I don’t lobby. I have no contact with anyone. I provide opinions. There’s no doubt about that. I gave them a legal opinion, legitimately, and I believe the government was resisting somewhat unduly and unconstitutionally.”
Later, at the end of 2021, Huawei did not end up participating in the auction for 5G operators. However, the company remains a key supplier of equipment for deploying 5G. Huawei stopped being targeted by Bolsonaro, who at the time was aligned with the interests of Donald Trump’s first administration. The U.S. does not want China controlling the equipment market, and Huawei is also under investigation for suspected espionage in several parts of the world. “He [Temer] managed to mediate, he managed to resolve the problem,” explained Rafael Zanatta, director of the Data Privacy Brasil Research Association. “Clearly, he is orienting his career as a crisis lobbyist,” Zanatta added.
As is already known, Temer did not issue legal opinions for Google in 2023. But he did mediate contacts between Google executives and Congressman Orlando Silva, rapporteur of the Fake News Bill.
How do we define lobbying? “At the most abstract level, lobbying is the defense of a cause before a decision-maker, and it is not a crime in itself,” explained Zanatta, noting that Brazil has no lobbying regulation. The researcher further pointed out that, in U.S. law, for example, lobbying is supposed to be public, democratic, and equitable—something that does not happen in Brazil. “What is not allowed is to organize a dinner in Lisbon, for example, or to produce something tailored just for one congressman. Or to go further and draft a bill that a parliamentary aide then introduces specifically as legislation,” Zanatta concluded, citing several cases that do occur in Brazil.
Temer’s representation of Google and other tech companies is an example of the well-known “revolving door” tactic—a classic maneuver whereby senior public officials move into private-sector roles or vice versa. In the Big Tech’s Invisible Hand project, we documented several similar cases.
News at the time reported meetings between the former president and party leaders to discuss the Fake News Bill. To understand more about Temer’s activities, CLIP filed a freedom of information request with the Chamber of Deputies for records of his presence there. The Chamber responded that it had no record of Temer entering the building between January 2023 and May 2024. However, it noted that “entries of people with permanent congressional credentials, lawmakers, and high-ranking authorities are not logged.” Temer is neither a sitting lawmaker nor a current president. Interviews with sources who requested anonymity described Temer as part of the maneuvering that led to the defeat of the bill intended to regulate tech companies.
At the Supreme Court, with Apple
CLIP also traced Temer’s actions at the Supreme Federal Court (STF). In Google’s cases before the Court, there is no record of the former president’s involvement. CLIP even requested access logs for Temer at the Court, but the STF declined to release them. In the Court’s system, the only technology-related case in which Temer appears as an attorney is a lawsuit filed by Apple against IGB Eletrônica S.A. over the registration and use of the “Gradiente iPhone” trademark, which was registered in Brazil in 2008.
Apple is seeking to annul the registration that allowed IGB to use the name “Gradiente iPhone.” The application was filed by IGB in 2000 but was not granted by Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) until 2008. Before that, in 2007, Apple had launched the iPhone, which gained worldwide recognition. Apple has already won in the first and second instances. IGB Eletrônica is now trying to overturn those rulings at the Supreme Court.
Temer was hired by IGB Eletrônica on October 14, 2023, when the case was already in its final stage at the STF. This journalistic alliance had access to the case file and saw his power of attorney on record. The case’s rapporteur is Justice Dias Toffoli. However, the only document in the file is the notarized power appointing Temer as IGB’s representative. He did not file any petitions, nor is there any other formal action by him in the case. Attorney Igor Mauler Santiago, who leads IGB’s defense, declined to be interviewed.
Journalists spoke with sources actively involved in the negotiations who requested anonymity. They said Temer drafted a technical opinion on Gradiente’s intellectual property claim regarding the disputed name with Apple. This document was reportedly shown to STF justices but was never attached to the case file. Moreover, Temer’s hiring is said to have come after he defended IGB in ADI 5529, a constitutional challenge to an article of Brazil’s Industrial Property Law (Law 9.279/1996) that extended patent terms in the country. In that case, he argued a position that was favorable to Gradiente.
The case began in the Court’s virtual session, where Gradiente was losing 5 votes (Alexandre de Moraes, Luís Roberto Barroso, Cármen Lúcia, Cristiano Zanin, and Luiz Fux) to 3 (Dias Toffoli, Gilmar Mendes, and André Mendonça), when Justice Toffoli decided to move the discussion to an in-person session, restarting the vote. Since late 2023, the parties have been waiting for the case to be resolved in the STF’s full bench, which has yet to happen.
Temer has also intervened in other major corporate lawsuits. In the case of Eletrobras versus Fundo de Investimento, he represented the company in its attempt to avoid paying 142 million reais (USD $28 million) after losing a case that lasted more than 20 years, but the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) denied the request.
In São Paulo’s public lighting case—a mega-contract worth 6.9 billion reais (USD $1.37 billion)—different consortia are battling in court. The STJ upheld the contract with Iluminação Paulistana to avoid leaving the city in the dark. Temer acted on behalf of one of the parties.
In another case, a dispute over the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant—in which Temer represents Eletrobras—the STF ruled that the plant could continue operating, but that companies must compensate Indigenous communities for the impacts caused.
Criminal cases and investigations
Michel Temer has faced two major criminal proceedings. In the Lava Jato case, he and other defendants were summarily acquitted of criminal charges involving Petrobras, Furnas, and other public bodies, with the ruling becoming final in 2023.
In the “Ports Decree” case, Temer scored a major victory when he secured the release of 32.6 million reais (USD $6.5 million) in assets that had been frozen, as the court found no sufficient grounds for the freeze. He was acquitted, but the Federal Prosecution Service appealed the ruling. According to the indictment, Temer had allegedly received bribes and benefits through companies in exchange for changing legislation to favor port-sector firms.
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