Latest: Corruption and Money Laundering.
Brazil seizes $655 mln in assets from Odebrecht, OAS, executives.
Brazil's federal auditing court TCU ordered on Wednesday the seizure of about 2.1 billion reais ($655 million) worth of assets from engineering firms Odebrecht SA and OAS SA and some of theirexecutives, to recoup losses from contracts related to the country's biggest ever corruption scandal.
Brasilia-based TCU said in a ruling that the decision aims to recover some of the money that state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro overpaid for services rendered by Odebrecht and OAS in two works at the Abreu e Lima refinery. The scheme drove up the cost of those works by 25 percent, TCU said.
The former chief executive and scion of Odebrecht SA, Marcelo Bahia Odebrecht, and his former counterpart at OAS, José Adelmário "Leo" Pinheiro, had some of their assets seized, as well as those for four more executives at both firms. The decision also affected José Sérgio Gabrielli, the former CEO of Petrobras, the state oil company.
According to the ruling, councilors at the TCU argued that Bahia Odebrecht and Pinheiro practiced and directed "illicit acts to defraud through auctioning processes at Petrobras in order to maximize illegally the profit of their companies." The lawyers representing both businessmen, who are also major shareholders in their respective companies, could not be reached for comment.
The decision highlights the way Brazil's engineering groups and their owners are coping with legal and economic punishment in the aftermath of "Operation Car Wash," which laid bare a system of illegal favors between politicians and business elites.
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