MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brzil-based Odebrecht SA, Latin America's biggest engineering firm, and Braskem SA, the region's biggest petrochemical producer, jointly owned by Odebrecht and Petrobras, agreed on Wednesday to pay at least USD3.5 billion, the largest penalty ever in a foreign bribery case, to resolve international charges involving payoffs to Brazil's state oil company and others, reported Reuters.
Odebrecht and Braskem pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in Brooklyn to conspiring to violate a U.S. foreign bribery law after an investigation involving political kickbacks at Brazil's Petrobras unearthed the bribery scheme.
The huge penalty was negotiated as part of a broad settlement with U.S., Brazilian and Swiss authorities.
Some of the hundreds of millions of dollars used in bribes to secure lucrative business deals flowed through the American banking system and some of the schemes were planned in the United States, enabling U.S. authorities to claim jurisdiction in the case.
Their guilty pleas were the first in the United States following a nearly three-year investigation in Brazil dubbed "Operation Car Wash" into corruption at Petrobras, which has led to dozens of arrests and political upheaval in Brazil.
As MRC informed earlier, Brazil's state-controlled oil producer Petrobras is seeking to sell its 5.8 billion Brazilian real (USD1.4 billion) stake in petrochemical producer Braskem SA. Petrobras has hired Brazilian bank Banco Bradesco SA as a financial adviser and has started to pitch the sale to foreign investors. Petrobras owns a 36 percent stake in Braskem, Latin America's largest petrochemical producer. The sale would help Petrobras meet its target of selling USD15.1 billion worth of assets in 2015-16, a key part of its plan to cut debt as oil prices plunge to 12-year lows.
Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
MRC