Brazil’s state-run power company Eletrobras announced this week in a Form 6-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has hired law firm Hogan Lovells to evaluate whether the company may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Brazil’s anti-corruption law, and Eletrobras’ Code of Ethics.
Eletrobras said the internal investigation will focus on “projects in which Eletrobras companies take part in a corporate form or as minority shareholder, through special purpose entities.”
According to an earlier filing issued in May, Eletrobras said it launched the investigation following testimony given by the former CEO of Camargo Corrêa related to the Brazilian government’s ongoing investigation of corruption allegations against Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras, known as “Operation Car Wash.” That testimony alleged that the CEO of Eletrobras Thermonuclear, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eletrobras, received illicit payments from a consortium of companies bidding on a power plant project.
Eltrobras is not the only company of late to launch an internal investigation amid the Petrobras investigation. As Compliance Week previously reported, Brazil-based petrochemical giant Braskem said in a filing with the SEC in April that it has launched an internal investigation into potential violations of the FCPA concerning whether two of its former executive officers made improper payments between 2006 and 2012 to Petrobras in exchange for raw-material supply agreements.
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