The Odebrecht–Car Wash leniency agreement, also known in Brazil as the "end of the world plea deal" (), was the
leniency agreement signed between
Odebrecht S.A. and the
Public Prosecutor's Office
Public prosecutor's offices are criminal justice bodies attached to the judiciary.
They are separate from the courts in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, and are called the Staatsanwaltschaft.
This kind of office als ...
(PGR) in December 2016, as part of
Operation Car Wash
Operation Car Wash ( pt, Operação Lava Jato) was a criminal investigation by the Federal Police of Brazil's Curitiba branch. It began in March 2014 and was initially headed by investigative judge in France, but unlike judges in the common law ...
. The agreement provided for the deposition of 78 of the contractor's executives, including the former president
Marcelo Odebrecht
Marcelo Bahia Odebrecht (; born 18 October 1968) is a Brazilian businessman and the former CEO of Odebrecht, a diversified Brazilian conglomerate. In March 2016, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for paying more than $30 million in bribes. ...
, and his father, , which generated 83 investigations at the
Supreme Federal Court (STF).
In March 2017, Attorney General
Rodrigo Janot
Rodrigo Janot Monteiro de Barros (born September 15, 1956, Belo Horizonte) is a Brazilian jurist who served as the Prosecutor General of the Republic
The Prosecutor General of the Republic ( pt, Procurador-Geral da República) is the head of ...
asked the Supreme Tribunal to withdraw the secrecy of the depositions. The following month, on 11 April, STF Minister
Edson Fachin accepted the request of the A-G and withdrew the secrecy of investigations. On 12 April, federal judge
Sérgio Moro
Sergio Fernando Moro (; born 1 August 1972) is a Brazilian jurist, former federal judge, college professor and politician. He was elected to be a member of the Federal Senate for Paraná in October 2022. In 2015 he gained national attention ...
followed the same line as the Supreme Tribunal and withdrew the secrecy of denunciations involving people without ' status from the jurisdiction of judges of
first instance
A trial court or court of first instance is a court having original jurisdiction, in which trials take place. Appeals from the decisions of trial courts are usually made by higher courts with the power of appellate review (appellate courts). Mos ...
. Moro said in his order, "The judiciary should not be the guardian of shadowy secrets. Moreover, publicity prevents unlawful, regrettable leaks, which are difficult to control".
According to the lead prosecutor of Operation Car Wash,
Deltan Dallagnol, the leniency agreement provided the "greatest refund in world history". Odebrecht and
Braskem
Braskem is a Brazilian petrochemical company headquartered in São Paulo. The company is the largest petrochemical company in Latin America and has become a major player in the international petrochemical market (8th largest resin producer worldw ...
pleaded guilty and would pay fines of 3.5 billion dollars, the equivalent of 12 billion reals, 80 per cent of which would go to Brazil.
In 2018, the STF took from Lava Jato the so-called End of the World denunciation in which 415 politicians from 26 parties were mentioned, but merely one was convicted. It generated 270 investigations, but only five of them became criminal proceedings.
The resulted in several , especially in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
.
See also
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Brazilian Anti-Corruption Act
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Chamber of Deputies
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Condução coercitiva
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Constitution of Brazil
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Corruption in Brazil
Corruption in Brazil exists on all levels of society from the top echelons of political power to the smallest municipalities. Operation Car Wash showed central government members using the prerogatives of their public office for rent-seeking act ...
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Crime in Brazil
Crime in Brazil involves an elevated incidence of violent and non-violent crimes. Brazil possesses high rates of violent crimes, such as murders and robberies. Brazil's homicide rate was 27.4 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants according to the U ...
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Economy of Brazil
The economy of Brazil is historically the largest in Latin America and the Southern Hemisphere in nominal terms. The Brazilian economy is the third largest in the Americas. The economy is a middle income developing mixed economy. In 2022, a ...
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Federal government of Brazil
The Federal Government of Brazil (''Governo Federal'') is the national government of the Federative Republic of Brazil, a republic in South America divided in 26 states and a federal district. The Brazilian federal government is divided in thr ...
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Federal Police of Brazil
The Federal Police of Brazil (Portuguese: ''Polícia Federal'') is a federal law enforcement agency of Brazil and one of the three national police forces. The other two are the Federal Highway Police, and the National Force. From 1944 to 1967 ...
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Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff
The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the 36th president of Brazil, began on 2 December 2015 with a petition for her impeachment being accepted by Eduardo Cunha, then president of the Chamber of Deputies, and continued into late 2016. Dilma Rousse ...
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Impeachment proposals against Michel Temer
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Industry in Brazil
Brazilian industry has its earliest origin in workshops dating from the beginning of the 19th century. Most of the country's industrial establishments appeared in the Brazilian southeast (mainly in the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and ...
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Judiciary of Brazil
The Judiciary of Brazil is the group of public entities designated by the Brazilian constitution to carry out the country's judicial functions.
Brazil's 1988 constitution has adopted a tripartite separation of powers, with a Legislative power ...
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Law enforcement in Brazil
In Brazil, the Federal Constitution establishes eight law enforcement institutions - seven titulars and one auxiliar. The titular institutions are: the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police, the Federal Railroad Police, the Federal Penal P ...
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Law of Brazil
The law of Brazil is based on statutes and, partly and more recently, a mechanism called ''súmulas vinculantes''. It derives mainly from the civil law systems of European countries, particularly Portugal, the Napoleonic Code and the Germanic la ...
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Operation Car Wash
Operation Car Wash ( pt, Operação Lava Jato) was a criminal investigation by the Federal Police of Brazil's Curitiba branch. It began in March 2014 and was initially headed by investigative judge in France, but unlike judges in the common law ...
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Penal Code of Brazil
The current Penal Code of Brazil ( pt, Código Penal brasileiro) was promulgated in 1940, during the Estado Novo regime in the Vargas Era, and is in effect since January 1, 1942. It is the third codification of criminal law in the country's hi ...
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Politics of Brazil
The politics of Brazil take place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. The political and administrative or ...
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President of Brazil
The president of Brazil ( pt, Presidente do Brasil), officially the president of the Federative Republic of Brazil ( pt, Presidente da República Federativa do Brasil) or simply the ''President of the Republic'', is the head of state and head o ...
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Public Prosecutor's Office (Brazil)
The Public Prosecutor's Office ( pt, Ministério Público, lit. "Public Ministry", also usually referred as "MP") is the Brazilian body of independent public prosecutors at both the federal (') and state level (''Ministério Público Estadual' ...
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States of Brazil
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Timeline of Brazilian history
References
;Notes
;Citations
External links
Constituição Da República Federativa Do Brasil De 1988
Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil pdf; 432 pages
Official Senate legislation search engine for Brazilian law
Government of Brazil
2016 in Brazil
Political corruption
Political scandals in Brazil
Odebrecht
{{Crime-stub