After a tumultuous few years at the center of an international corruption scandal, Brazil-based Odebrecht is looking to move on. The company ended 2018 coming to agreement with Brazilian authorities to settle some of its outstanding fines and charges, paying the government an estimated $700 million related to the Lavo Jato, or “Car Wash,” anticorruption investigation. The agreements will allow the company to once again participate in bids for government projects and to obtain credit in Brazil.
Odebrecht has been one of the Brazilian companies at a center of a bribery and corruption scandal that has rocked governments across Latin America. Ongoing revelations about politicians and bureaucrats taking bribes from Odebrecht and other major Brazilian firms related to infrastructure and energy projects over several decades has led to resignations and government shakeups beyond Brazil, ensnaring officials in Peru, Panama, Bolivia and Colombia, and at times provoking large public protests. A unit of Odebrecht was debarred by the World Bank last month over bribery accusations on a Colombia flood-control project.