Last week the FCPA Blog reported that Petrobras announced it was not working with U.S. authorities to resolve potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act claims against the company. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Petrobras said, “There are no ongoing negotiations regarding the eventual payment of a fine for the winding up of civil and criminal investigations in the United States regarding the violation of the anti-corruption legislation.”
It is most unusual for a company to declare publicly that it is not working to resolve any outstanding FCPA issues. Nothing about the Petrobras corruption scandal, however, is “usual.” What made this announcement even more peculiar was that it was in response to a Reuters story from earlier last week that had stated: “Brazil’s Petrobras may need to pay record penalties of $1.6 billion or more to settle U.S. criminal and civil probes into its role in a corruption scandal, a person recently briefed by the company’s legal advisers told Reuters.”
