AmericasOffshore

Petrobras settles suit with one of its largest shareholders

Brazil’s troubled state oil firm Petrobras has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by shareholder The Vanguard Group.

No figure has been given for the settlement amount, which was approved by Petrobras’ board of directors.

Vanguard, one of Petrobras’ largest shareholders, filed suit in Federal Court in Pennsylvania alleging that Petrobras concealed the nature and extent of a huge bribery scandal that has rocked Brazil.

That concealment, which denied shareholders a full appreciation of the problems the company faced, was a violation of federal securities laws, the suit claimed.

Petrobras, a major player in South America’s oil industry and with extensive offshore production properties, was at the hub of a long-running bribes-for-inflated-contracts scheme that has seen the ruin of numerous executives and senior politicians.

Before this Vanguard settlement Petrobras had already reached settlements with 19 of 27 individual investors.

Despite settling, Petrobras denied acknowledging any liability. It still faces a class action suit in New York.

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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