The conglomerate Odebrecht is in the centre of the biggest corruption scandal in Latin America – and now he has filed for bankruptcy. Until Further notice, the company wants to make, however, undaunted shops.
An Odebrecht company sign at the Olympic village in Rio de Janeiro
The Brazilian Odebrecht group, has requested that claims to insolvency. In the Letter to the bankruptcy court in São Paulo, in other words, the parent company, Odebrecht S. A. and some subsidiaries, however, other companies are parts such as the petrochemical sector, Braskem S. A. will not be affected. The company is hoping that the step, a rescheduling of debt from 51 billion Reais (€11.7 billion) and intends to continue its economic activities.
“Operation Car Wash”
The construction and mixing group is called massive in the biggest corruption scandal in Latin America, “Operation car wash”, involved. Odenbrecht paid according to the findings of investigators systematically bribes to politicians of different countries, the granted to the group in return for state contracts. The U.S. Department of justice, the total sum of bribes is estimated to 785 million dollars (700 million euros), in various countries, is determined against hundreds of politicians, businessmen and officials.
By the end of 2016, the group admitted his guilt and agreed with the law enforcement in the United States, Brazil and Switzerland on penalties by a total of $ 2.6 billion (2.3 billion euros). The previous CEO Marcelo Odebrecht has already been sentenced to 2015 to 19 years in prison, in 2017, the penalty has been reduced and in house arrest in his luxury Villa in São Paulo converted. The two former President of Brazil, Michel Temer, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were involved, according to court rulings in the corruption affair, the latter is a twelve-year prison sentence.
Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula prior to the departure da Silva in one of his last performances by 2018, the sentence
Also in Peru, where Odebrecht bribes in the amount of 29 million dollars has been added to the suspicion to the state in three cases: In may, the charges against the former state was elevated to President Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine Heredia, his successor, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is under house arrest. Humala’s predecessor, Alan Garcia eluded his capture by suicide.
Decline of a tradition group
In his communication to the insolvency proceedings of the group called the upcoming proceedings “the consequence of an economic crisis”. Within five years, we have reduced the workforce of 180,000 to 48,000 employees. Analysts make the year-long crisis of the momentous undertaking and even as a cause for the recession of the Brazilian economy in 2015/16. In 1944 by German immigrants founded the group, was for decades one of the most important companies in Brazil, which was far beyond South America, in addition to active Odebrecht has built a Basketball Arena in Miami and a dam in Angola.
ehl/yy (dpa, afp, ap)