Marianela Toledo<\/p>\n\n\n\n
06-Apr-2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HOUSTON (ICIS)\u2013The Brazilian corruption investigation of Petrobras, which has ensnared the country\u2019s top political leadership, is likely to lead to improved business conditions and greater adherence to the rule of law in the hemisphere\u2019s second-largest economy when the damage is cleared away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is the assessment of the fallout of Lava Jato<\/em> (Portuguese for \u201ccar wash\u201d), as the investigation is known in the country, a group of Brazilian and US lawyers said this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the proposed impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff continues to move through the National Congress, a Brazilian delegation sought to shore up confidence in the country\u2019s economy and political commitment to cleaning up corruption and cronyism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At a Houston conference organised by the law firm of Mayer Brown LLP, the group met with investors, business owners and others concerned about the implications of Lava Jato<\/em> on foreign investment and those interested in acquiring assets in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt started as a money-laundering investigation with some car wash, and it evolved and turned into a Petrobras investigation first, then about other companies, then reached politicians, now \u2026 the president,\u201d said Bernardo Weaver, a partner at Mayer Brown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think more than anything [US companies want] to detect their exposure in the face of the Petrobras scandal \u2026 determine how far this will go, in which sectors we are going to have problems,\u201d Weaver said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The probe has so far led to the indictment of dozens of high-ranking executives and politicians, and has re-energised opposition attempts to force Rousseff\u2019s resignation, as an impeachment proceeding advances in the National Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the corruption scandal has not ended the extensive business relationships between Brazil and the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[US] companies continued to buy and sell and operate in Brazil despite all this, and they are concerned about it,\u201d Weaver said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brazil still holds good investment opportunities, even right now, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur system allowed corruption to occur, but is now overcome by a new way of dealing with things,\u201d he said. \u201cBrazil has a lot of assets that are economically important, and Brazil is a huge economy, and has importance in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The legal structure has been reinforced, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of them is the Brazil\u2019s Clean Company Act of 2014 (law number 12,846), which makes companies liable for the corrupt acts of their employees without a finding of fault. Regulators implemented the law in January 2015. Since then, other legislation has been proposed, all aimed at enforcing anti-corruption laws and transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adams said that the Brazilian Supreme Court recently prohibited companies from giving money to political candidates. In addition, the Brazilian tax agency obtained a Supreme Court ruling allowing direct access to all accounts to conduct investigations. Those two decisions revealed a process that cannot be reversed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of the new legislations, the Brazilian economy will be more open, Adams said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne issue that \u2026 this political crisis [brought to light] \u2026 is how much the government controlled companies \u2026 you can see that [because of the advancement on] the impeachment,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey [government] should not interfere [with companies], but support with compliance,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexandre R. Chequer, a partner at Mayer Brown, said that the future holds less involvement of the Brazilian government in the petrochemical sector. That includes upstream, midstream and downstream.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marianela Toledo 06-Apr-2016 HOUSTON (ICIS)\u2013The Brazilian corruption investigation of Petrobras, which has ensnared the country\u2019s top political leadership, is likely to lead to improved business conditions and greater adherence to the rule of law in the hemisphere\u2019s second-largest economy when the damage is cleared away. That is the assessment of the fallout of Lava Jato (Portuguese for \u201ccar wash\u201d), […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marianelatoledo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}