San Francisco: All the suspense will soon be over for market and scandal watchers as Brazil’s corruption-racked oil giant Petrobras said on Friday that it has set a date for releasing its long overdue audited figures for the last half of 2014.
April 22, the coming Wednesday, is the one to circle in the calendar as the day when some numerical and financial specifics should be put on the cost of corruption.
The company has been embroiled for months now in allegations of a multibillion dollar scheme wherein bribes, inflated contracts and kickbacks were widespread. As well as some senior Petrobras personnel the list of alleged participants included overseas companies and domestic politicians.
The scandal hit a new height on Wednesday when Joao Vaccari Neto, former treasurer of the governing Workers’ Party, was arrested and charged with corruption and money laundering in connection with the scheme.
Also on Friday another Brazilian company caught up in the affair, engineering firm Schahin Group, requested a bankruptcy court’s protection for 28 of its subsidiaries.
