Federal Prosecutor General Thinks Operation Car Wash Attracts Capital Instead of Driving It Away

01/18/2017 - 13h41

Brazil´s Federal Prosecutor General, Rodrigo Janot, said on Wednesday (18), to an audience essentially of businessmen, that Operation Car Wash, which he commands in Brazil and has already sent to the jail a handful of important executives, is not an attack on capitalism.

On the contrary, he said, it is defending the market economy, because tolerating corporate corruption leads inexorably to a "crony capitalism."

This type of capitalism inevitably results in distortions in competition - the golden rule of capitalism - because the "cronies" of the rulers in power have preferences in public works in exchange for bribes.

Janot arrived in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday (17) to attend three sessions of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

One of the executives who have participated in previous meetings was, for example, Marcelo Odebrecht, the most illustrious of those imprisoned by Operation Car Wash, at least in the business sphere.

Janot rejects the thesis, which circulates in some business and legal environments in Brazil, that Operation Car Wash diverts investors, fearful of being reached by the operation.

In a second talk at the Davos Forum, next Thursday (19), Janot will make a brief survey about the operation he is commanding.

He will say that "without normative instruments" nothing would have been achieved. Among them, he will mention the law of administrative improbity, the law on organized crime and the so-called "compliance", which is part of the leniency agreements, a kind of "plea bargain" for companies.

"Without the plea bargain deals, there would be no Lava Jet, at least not at the speed it is today," believes the prosecutor.

Translated by MARINA DELLA VALLE

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