The former chief international officer of Brazil’s state oil giant Petrobras has been charged with fraud over alleged contract overbidding.
Jorge Luiz Zelada is accused of favouring Brazil’s conglomerate Odebrecht when awarding an $825.6million contract in a 2010 auction, the Rio de Janeiro state Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.
Odebrecht’s contract director, Marco Antonio Duran, and seven Petrobras’ attorneys, technicians and engineers face the same charges.
The accused face a four-year prison sentence and fines equivalent to 2% of the value of the Action Program for Certification in Safety, Health and Environment contract in question.
The case adds to Petrobras’ corruption woes as the company is already under scrutiny for two transactions – a purchase of a US refinery in 2006, and a joint venture with Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA to build the Abreue Lima refinery in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
The Attorney General has also called for investigation into other suspicious contracts signed by the company, including the 2010 sale of the refinery in San Lorenzo, Argentina, the purchase of an exploratory block in Namibia, the contracting of an offshore drilling company and the 2013 sale of Petrobras Argentina’s 27.3% stake in energy distributor Edesur.