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Odebrecht is the largest construction company in Latin America. It's based in Brazil and has operation in Brazil, most Spanish American countries, and in some Portuguese African countries.
Instead of re-stating what is already in the article, I will simply quote some sentences and then the link!
Quote:
Odebrecht SA, Latin America’s biggest construction company, and an affiliate agreed to pay more than $3.5 billion to resolve bribery allegations involving Brazil’s state-run oil company, the largest corruption penalty ever levied by global authorities.
Odebrecht agreed with U.S. authorities to a $4.5 billion penalty, but it said it could pay only $2.6 billion, according to U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie. The judge said the final number would be determined at an April 17 hearing and said it could be higher or lower than $2.6 billion. Braskem agreed to pay $632 million to the U.S. Justice Department and $325 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The convictions mark the first corporate resolutions in the U.S. stemming from a nearly three-year investigation of more than a dozen companies in the international corruption scandal known as Operation Carwash, which has helped plunge Brazil into recession. They are probably not the last, however, with the SEC and Justice Department saying their investigations are continuing. Brazil and Switzerland are also investigating the role of individuals and banks, respectively.
Experts on corporate bribery said the Odebrecht admissions of giving bribes in a dozen countries - including Venezuela, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Panama, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Angola and Mexico as well as Brazil - could subject Odebrecht to new investigations.
Nearly 80 Odebrecht executives and employees have agreed to turn state's witness as part of a leniency deal, and their testimony is expected to provide even more evidence about corruption in several nations.
Argentina and Peru had already opened probes into Odebrecht construction contracts for suspected kickbacks to former politicians. Prosecutors in Peru recently returned from an investigative trip to Switzerland, which has turned over information to Brazilian authorities on about 1,000 bank accounts suspected of being linked to the country's wide-ranging corruption scandal.
Brazilian police say Odebrecht may have paid bribes to former Peruvian President Ollanta Humala, and to various Argentine officials, including a former transportation secretary. Humala, who is already under investigation in an unrelated money-laundering case, denies wrongdoing. Kuczynski, who was not named in the Brazilian investigation but was prime minister or finance minister when Odebrecht agreed to bribe a high-ranking official in 2005, said he was not involved in any corrupt scheme.
Ecuador's attorney general, Galo Chiriboga, said on Thursday he had requested information from Brazil and the U.S. Justice Department. "We will find out who Odebrecht bribed," he told state-run media.
The head of Guatemala's special anti-corruption prosecutor's office told Reuters he had already been investigating Odebrecht bribes to a government official, and President Jimmy Morales said the government would check all Odebrecht contracts.
Mexico's government and state oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, said they would review the allegations, but Francisco Burquez, an opposition senator, argued that local officials were unlikely to do much because of the prevalence of corruption. "It's the government that covers it up," he said.
This is not surprising and pretty much how most companies run in Latin America, unfortunately. They take full advantage of the corruption culture there.
Hmmm, it looks like Odebrecht may go bankrupt from having to pay out all this money. They could be sued in other nations as well.
They must do business in the US, with subsidiaries and US bank accounts and are also likely on the US exchanges, or else the US wouldn't have any jurisdiction. Odebrecht likely accessing foreign capital markets.
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