Petrobras will finally get its day in a U.S. court on Sept. 19 in a trial that pits 18 former executives and 13 investment banks, including J.P. Morgan Securities, against U.S. and U.K. investors. Claimants are seeking “tens of billions of dollars” in losses from the Brazilian oil and gas giant.
The president of Brazil's Senate was put on the defensive with the release of a secretly recorded conversation that reveals him proposing to weaken one of the key tools prosecutors have used to catch politicians and businessmen in a sweeping corruption scandal.
Brazil's Planning Minister Romero Juca said on Monday he will temporarily step down after a newspaper published recordings of him discussing plans to obstruct the country's biggest-ever corruption investigation, which includes him among its targets.
Brazilian federal judge hearing the Petrobras case, Sergio Moro, avoided commenting Monday on the voice recording in which a minister of acting-President Michel Temer suggests ways to end the investigation into corruption at the state-run oil company Petrobras, but warned that the government should not interfere in trials, which are the responsibility of the justice system.
Former Brazilian energy minister Pedro Parente has been named by acting President Michel Temer as the new CEO of state-run oil giant Petrobras. Parente was picked Thursday to replace Aldemir Bendine, an appointee of now suspended President Dilma Rousseff. The new Petrobras CEO was working as chairman of Sao Paulo-based financial bourse BM&FBovespa.
A Brazilian federal judge on Wednesday sentenced Jose Dirceu, a former presidential chief of staff, to 23 years and three months in prison for his role in a massive corruption scheme centered on state-controlled oil company Petrobras. Judge Sergio Moro, who is spearheading the bribes-for-inflated contracts probe, found Dirceu guilty of accepting and paying bribes and money laundering.
Brazil's interim president, Michel Temer said he would continue a tradition of nominating a prosecutor general who comes recommended by peers, allaying concerns about judicial independence. Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes, sworn in last week as part of Temer's new government, told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in an interview that the prosecutor general of Brazil could be selected at will by the president.
JBS SA, the world's largest beef producer, denied a Saturday newspaper report that it had made illegal payments for President Dilma Rousseff's 2014 reelection campaign. O Globo newspaper, citing leaked testimony given to federal investigators by Monica Moura, the wife of Rousseff's campaign chief Joao Santana, earlier reported that JBS paid the Rousseff campaign's debt to Focal, a Sao Paulo-based visual communications firm.
Brazil's Supreme Court removed the speaker of the lower house of Congress on Thursday on charges of obstructing a corruption investigation, days before an impeachment process that he engineered was expected to oust President Dilma Rousseff.
Brazil's Attorney General Rodrigo Janot has asked the Supreme Court to authorize an investigation against former President Lula da Silva for alleged corruption. Janot accused Lula of playing a key role in the huge corruption scandal at the state oil company, Petrobras.