Photo: SBM Offshore
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Brazilian prosecutors on Thursday charged 12 people with a bribery scheme involving Dutch firm SBM Offshore NV, the world’s top leaser of oil production ships, and state oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA .
Police said they had four arrest orders as part of the scheme, dubbed “Operation Black Blood,” though two of them involved suspects already in jail in the southern city of Curitiba, the epicenter of a broader investigation into price fixing and bribery on Petrobras contracts with engineering firms.
Former Petrobras executives Pedro Barusco, Jorge Zelada and Renato Duque were charged with corruption along with former SBM sales agents Julio Faerman and Luis Eduardo Campos Barbosa da Silva, according to a statement from federal prosecutors.
Anthony Mace and Didier Keller, both former SBM chief executive officers, were charged with racketeering and corruption as was Robert Zubiate, former senior vice president.
Earlier on Thursday, police carried out raids and arrests in “Operation Black Blood” in Rio de Janeiro, Angra dos Reis and Curitiba, police said.
The alleged bribery in the SBM probe in Brazil predates the better-known “Operation Car Wash,” which is focused on graft involving engineering firms and Petrobras between 2003 and 2014.
Between 1998 and 2012, there were “undue payments” in Switzerland of at least $46 million relating to contracts for floating oil production, storage and offloading ships, prosecutors said.
They said Duque, who is currently in jail on corruption charges in Curitiba, asked SBM sales agents for $300 million for the ruling Workers’ Party to fund its 2010 election campaign.
An SBM representative in Brazil said none of the company’s offices in Brazil had been raided. Petrobras did not immediately respond to request for comment.
SBM, which supplies and operates floating production, storage and offloading vessels, is negotiating a leniency agreement with the Brazilian government, sources have told Reuters.
The company settled with Dutch authorities in November 2014 for a record $240 million, ending a more than two-year inquiry into improper payments to government officials in Angola, Brazil and Equatorial Guinea by sales agents between 2007 and 2011.
Dutch prosecutors said they received information from Brazilian authorities that SBM Offshore’s Brazilian sales passed on some of their commissions to Brazilian government officials via offshore entities. (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Silvio Cascione in Brasilia, and Marta Nogueira in Rio de Janeiro; Writing by Caroline Stauffer in Sao Paulo ; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.
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