COPENHAGEN: Brazil’s top prosecutor in the Petrobras corruption case has informed the US Department of Justice about evidence that a number of top international companies paid bribes to win contracts.
Samsung Heavy Industries of South Korea, AP Moeller-Maersk of Denmark, Skanska AB of Sweden and Toyo Engineering Corp of Japan are the firms named by Carlos Lima, the senior prosecutor in a nine-person task force. Companies could face charges in Brazil that would restrict local operations as well as possible sanctions under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, he told the Bloomberg news wire.
The months-long unravelling of the scandal surrounding Brazil’s state-run oil company has exposed mind-boggling levels of graft, contract rigging, price fixing and political kickbacks as well as seeing several executives and politicians named, shamed and, in some cases, tried.
