If your company did business with Petrobras or the construction company Odebrecht SA over the past 10 years or so, things are about to get very interesting. Indeed, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, one headline in Brazil screamed, “The Doomsday Plea Bargain” and one commentator was quoted that “It will be like a hydrogen bomb.” All this because the “Jailed billionaire construction mogul Marcelo Odebrecht is ready to turn state’s evidence in a massive Brazilian corruption probe.”
An unidentified number of Odebrecht senior executives have been arrested. These arrested and having its former CEO sentenced to 19 years in prison seemed to cause the company to change its tune when on Wednesday, Odebrecht SA “confirmed that Mr. Odebrecht, its former chief executive, and other company employees are prepared to tell prosecutors what they know about a supplier cartel that siphoned billions from Brazil’s state oil company and channeled it into the pockets of crooked politicians.”
