Ecopetrol hid information from fiscal auditor; there was no audit of Ricardo Roa's management
What was initially a routine technical reading at Ecopetrol's general shareholders' meeting in 2026 ended up raising alarms about the transparency, governance, and trust of the Colombian oil company due to the lack of access to financial and management information.
TL;DR
- Ecopetrol's fiscal auditor, Deloitte & Touche SAS, did not have full access to all financial and management information for the fiscal year 2025.
- The management report of Ecopetrol's president, Ricardo Roa, was not audited due to lack of access.
- The financial statements received a clean opinion, but the "other information" including the management report remains un-audited.
- Shareholders expressed concerns about a systematic deterioration in corporate governance, including changes to the compliance reporting structure and alleged conflicts of interest involving President Gustavo Petro.
- The complexity of estimating oil and gas reserves and their impact on accounting estimates was a significant technical challenge for the audit.
- The auditor's process for evaluating reserve estimates was robust but concluded partially due to the limited scope of available information.