Chief justice accepts Odebrecht executives' testimonies into corruption probe

The Chief Justice of Brazil's Supreme Court, Cármen Lúcia, has authorized the use of the plea bargain statements of 77 executives and former employees of Odebrecht construction company in the Operation Car Wash corruption investigation. The testimonies provide details of the corruption scandal involving Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras.

As a result, the more than 800 testimonies heard from Odebrecht's executives and former employees by the Federal Prosecution Service (MPF) have been admitted as evidence in the case.

These records include the testimony of the company's former CEO, Marcelo Odebrecht, who has been jailed in Curitiba since 2015 and has already been sentenced to 19 years in prison by a lower federal court.

It is now largely speculated whether Cármen Lúcia will declassify the contents of the testimonies where former executives have implicated dozens of politicians who are currently in office.

The top court's green lights for the testimonies came after the death on January 19 of Teori Zavascki, the Supreme Court justice overseeing the Car Wash case at the Supreme Court level. A plane he was flying in fell into the sea near Paraty, Rio de Janeiro. He had interrupted his judiciary Christmas holidays to ensure he could authorize the testimonies into the case as quickly as possible.

Upon Zavascki's death, Cármen Lúcia, as the chief justice of the Supreme Court, gained the authority to accept the testimonies during the judiciary Christmas break. But after the holidays end, which will happen tomorrow (31), Cármen Lúcia will lose her authority to decide on Car Wash matters, and another justice should take over oversight of the case at the Supreme Court.

The decision as to who is going to be the next reporting justice on the case is still under speculation at the Supreme Court—under the internal regulations of the court, there can be a number of outcomes. It is not known, for example, whether the next justice in charge of Car Wash will be drawn from among the full bar or the so-called “second panel”, a smaller chamber of justices within the bar Zavascki was part of.

“Bribery department”

According to Federal Police investigations authorized by Federal Judge Sérgio Moro of the lower court in Curitiba, Odebrecht had maintained an informal department within its organization that was responsible for kickback payments, known as the Structured Operations Division.

According to the Car Wash task force, part of the company's employees were dedicated to operating these payments, which were directly assigned by the company's senior management.

The transactions were logged into a sophisticated computer system with servers in Switzerland, whose content the Federal Prosecution Service is still taking steps to gain access to, due to the system's strict security protocols.

Last March, Federal Police seized a spreadsheet at the home of former Odebrecht executive Benedicto Barbosa da Silva Júnior, as part of Operation “Acarajé”, as the 23rd stage of Operation Car Wash was dubbed. The spreadsheet, which was classified, listed payments to more than 200 politicians.

The company's illegal dealings reached beyond Brazilian borders. Odebrecht is investigated in at least three other Latin American countries—Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador. As part of a corporate leniency deal with the United States in late December, the company admitted to paying $3.3 billion in kickbacks to government officials of 12 countries.

Translated by Mayra Borges