Nieuw artikel in Oglobo bevestigt dat de nieuwe Anticorruptiewet slechts kan toegepast worden op feiten na 28 januari 2014 (http://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/lava-jato-empreiteiras-estao-na-mira-da-lei-anticorrupcao-14912513#coments), in het kader van de beslissing van het Braziliaanse openbaar ministerie (MPF) om te vervolgen in de Lava Jato-affaire. Ook nog eens bevestiging dat pas sinds deze wet bedrijven kunnen aangepakt worden.
Wash Jet: Contractors are being targeted by the Anti-Corruption Law
MPF gathers evidence to frame the companies based on new legislation
by Vinicius Sassine
26.12.2014 7:18 / Updated 12/26/2014 10:25
BRASILIA - Part of the contractors involved in the scandal Petrobras should be judged based on tougher rules of the new Anti-Corruption Law, which entered into force on 29 January this year. Invoices seized by the Federal Police show that Engevix construction continued to pay fees to the scheme operated by the money changer Alberto Youssef and Paulo Roberto Costa, former head of state in February 2014, when the Anti-Corruption Law was already in effect. Members of the Lava-jet operation task force must now fit other construction companies in the same situation.
Among the penalties under the Anti-Corruption Act are to the compulsory winding up of companies or the suspension of its activities, the loss of property and the application of millionaire fines, among other measures.
One of the seized invoices proves that Engevix Engineering, part of the Engevix group, made on 25 February this year a payment of £ 213,200 to GFD Investments, a company used by the money changer Alberto Youssef in the scheme that diverted resources from Petrobras . The note of the Municipal Finance of São Paulo discriminate as supposed service "advice or consulting of any kind."
Another document produced by PF after the seizure of papers Wash Jet Operation points out that on February 13, there was a transfer of $ 35,000 to the Global Costa. This consultancy was used by former Petrobras director Paulo Roberto Costa to move the schema money.
The Anti-Corruption Law, sanctioned by President Dilma Rousseff in August 2013, took effect 180 days later, on January 29 this year. The proposal was an initiative of the federal government and came to Congress in 2010, which met with fierce resistance and was very stop time, the lobby has otherwise done by contractors. The project came in the vote on the agenda within a kindness package offered by Congress before June 2013 megaprotestos.
The law was passed to punish legal persons based on bribery practice, both in the civil sphere as in administrative, not only the individuals responsible for acts of corruption, as they did before. One of the most severe penalties are a fine of 0.1% to 20% of gross sales of the company. If the billing criterion is not feasible to apply this penalty has a maximum value of £ 60 million.
Prosecutors that make up the task force set up by the Federal Public Ministry to monitor the Lava-jet operation have a common understanding: facts subsequent to the beginning of validity of the law can lead to penalties in the framework that came into existence. So far, among the large amount of evidence produced on the participation of contractors in the scheme, researchers have identified poor on the activities of the criminal organization after January. To the extent that such evidence arise, such as invoices GFD and Global Coast to Engevix, new shares in the civil area may be proposed to justice.
Administrative misconduct ACTIONS
According to prosecutors, the administrative accountability - in the context of the Comptroller General (CGU) - does not preclude the possibility of judicial accountability. For these prosecutors, the main merit of the law was to provide for the punishment of companies at the administrative level.
GLOBE consulted the CGU to whether evidence as invoices identified by the report can be used to frame the Anti-Corruption Law in Engevix. It said "any new fact may be included in the administrative process and lead to covered by the law." Facts prior to January this year are analyzed in the light of other legal framework, especially Litações Act.
The minister of the CGU, Jorge Hage, had declared earlier this month that this is a real possibility. The agency opened administrative proceedings against eight contractors involved in Lava-jet scheme, including Engevix.
The MPF task force prepares actions of improper conduct in parallel with the criminal charges already offered to justice, to frame contractors in sanctions that may lead to the prevention of new hires with the government. As the text of the Anti-Corruption Law, prosecution actions based on this law shall follow the same rites of class actions. These actions do not affect proceedings for misconduct or for bidding crime.
So far, the MPF denounced to justice (in criminal matters) the partner and vice president of Engevix, Gerson de Mello Almada; the technical directors of the contractor Carlos Eduardo Albero and Newton Prado Junior; and the engineer Luiz Roberto Pereira, who also worked for the company. Almada is being held in Curitiba. In the same complaint, were also included the money changer Youssef and former director Costa, and bribery scheme operators and money laundering, including two managers of GFD Investments: Enivaldo Square and Carlos Alberto Pereira da Costa.
The crimes named in the complaint are forming a criminal organization, corruption, money laundering, cartel behavior, fraud and bidding against the tax system. The last three will still be the subject of future reports. For now, there was no mention in the complaints to the Anti-Corruption Law, even as it is a criminal action - sanctions of the new law are in the civil and administrative level.
AGREEMENT BETWEEN ENGEVIX And GFD is CITED
The MPF action goes on to quote the contract between Engevix and GFD Investments, valid until December 15 this year. Would be ten installments, totaling US $ 2.13 million, to "provide administrative support services for the development of the Consortium Rnest OC Building activities and contract administration," according to the complaint. The invoice identified in the report is number 49 and, as the MPF was provided by Enivaldo Square, at the request of Youssef.
Would still have been issuing a note on April 1, when he had been triggered the first stage of Lava-jet operation, with the arrest of Youssef and Costa. Contractors and executives were arrested only on November 14.
The contract with Global Costa, in turn, would reach the amount of R $ 700,000, of which R $ 385,000 were actually paid. "Everyone was fully aware that the purpose of the agreement was absolutely fictitious, since the Global Costa was used by Paulo Roberto Costa for receiving improper values directly, without any intermediation of Alberto Youssef," the MPF in complaint.
GLOBE failed to contact Engevix. The company, whenever requested, has a standard answer: "Engevix provide the necessary explanations to justice."