A 19-year prison sentence handed down in connection with Brazil’s widening “Car Wash” scandal is a wake-up call for any company that has done any kind of business with Odebrecht SA, the largest construction company in Brazil and, indeed, South America.
As noted by Jaclyn Jaeger in several pieces in Compliance Week, the scandal began with the Brazilian entity Petrobras but has significantly expanded. In early March, Brazilian prosecutors secured a major conviction of the first of the non-Petrobras defendants, in the ever-burgeoning “Car Wash” scandal. The defendant convicted by a Brazilian court was Marcelo Odebrecht, the former head of Odebrecht SA, the largest construction company in Brazil and, indeed, all of South America. He was convicted on counts of money laundering, corruption, and organized crime centered on the bribery schemes his company had in place with Petrobras.
