Brazil: Andrade Gutierrez to admit World Cup bribes and price fixing

One of Brazil’s largest builders, Andrade Gutierrez, will confess to paying bribes for 2014 FIFA World Cup contracts and business with state-run companies Petrobras and Eletrobras, a newspaper report said on Friday.

Andrade Gutierrez agreed with Brazil’s prosecutor-general and other investigators to pay a fine of $270 million in leniency and plea deals covering the company and its executives, the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper said. The paper did not say how it obtained the information.

A source with knowledge of the talks said Andrade Gutierrez’s Chief Executive Otávio Marques de Azevedo was negotiating a plea deal with federal prosecutors but did not say what he might reveal in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Brazil’s biggest corruption investigation ever has seen some of the country’s most powerful politicians and businessmen jailed over the past two years, but shed little light so far on the soaring costs of a dozen World Cup stadiums.

Federal prosecutors in the southern city of Curitiba have signed leniency deals with four companies, without disclosing their names. Brazil’s comptroller general and antitrust regulator CADE are also negotiating leniency deals with firms.

Full content: Business Standard

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