The court ruling that imposed a 19 year prison sentence has forced a review of the projects being managed by the company in the region, where two projects which are underway in Panama alone, total $2.4 billion.
On March 8th the Brazilian justice system condemned Marcelo Odebrecht, former CEO of the largest Brazilian construction company, Odebrecht, to 19 years and 4 months in prison and to pay a fine of $35 million along with executives from the group for the payment of about $65 million in bribes to officials in the case of corruption in the state run oil company Petrobras, reported La Prensa. The ruling mentioned fraud in tenders, where bribes were also paid for the award of the works.
Prensa.com reports that “… while these tenders and adjudications took place, in March 2015 Panama had been asked for judicial cooperation by Brazilian prosecutors after discovering banking movements in the country made by a company which was linked to Odebrecht, suspected of laundering money for Petrobras executives. ”
Panama is the place in Central America where the company has participated the most actively since it set up there during the Torrijos administration. The Brazilian company built the coastal strip in phases 1, 2 and 3, Line 1 of the Panama Metro, and more recently, it was awarded with the contract to build line 2 for $1.857 billion, currently under construction. In addition, in June 2015 it won a tender in consortium with another company to develop the Colon Urban Renewal Project, valued at $537 million and which is currently underway.
In Guatemala, in 2013 an award was made to Norberto Odebrecht, SA to extend the stretch of road from Escuintla (west) to the border with El Salvador for the amount of Q3.000 million ($387 million). At that time, the government of then-president, Otto Perez Molina announced the construction of 76 bridges as part of the work. The company was subsequently linked to the construction company OAS, which is a subsidiary, over the same case of bribes to Petrobras.
In Honduras, Norberto Odebrecht decided to close its offices in Tegucigalpa , citing government problems in financing the hydroelectric projects Llanitos and Jicatuyo, which the Brazilian company was to build.
Source: Prensa.com