Emilio Odebrecht: Payments Made by Odebrecht Continued after Lava Jato Investigations Began

04/17/2017 - 12h16

Brazilian construction company Odebrecht said in a plea agreement that it only stopped paying for bribes and slash funds more than one year after the beginning of the Lava Jato investigations.

The company's patriarch, Emílio Odebrecht, told the Federal Public Prosecutor that he gave orders to stop the illegal payments only after his son and then-president of the group, Marcelo Odebrecht, was arrested in June 2015.

After his son was arrested, Emílio returned to the command of the group. He says that the order was to stop payments completely – even those behind schedule.

He mentioned an episode involving marketing man Duda Mendonça as an example for the employees about the new guidelines to be followed at Odebrecht. "The commitments that existed are now dead," he said.

When Marcelo was arrested, Lava Jato had started one year and three months earlier. Up until that moment, it was agreed that Odebrecht would pay Mendonça for a debt referring to three election campaigns, including that of Paulo Skaf (PMDB) who ran for governor of São Paulo in 2014.

After several attempts to reach an agreement, the parties agreed that Odebrecht would buy a property in the south of the state of Bahia from Mendonça for a price above market to settle the debt.

He told that he made an agreement with Marcelo to transfer bribes to Ademir Bendine, the former president of Banco do Brasil and of Petrobras - a total of R$ 3 million divided in three installments.

Duda Mendonça's defense has not made any comment yet. Ademir Bendine sustains that he never asked for or received bribes.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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