SBM Bribery Probe in Brazil Puts Petrobras Work at Risk
By Sabrina Valle and Peter Millard Nov 13, 2014
An investigation into allegations that SBM Offshore NV (SBMO) bribed Brazilian officials to get work may prevent the Dutch supplier of floating oil platforms from competing for contracts with state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA.
Brazil’s comptroller general opened a procedure against SBM to probe if it gained unfair advantages by bribing officials, the agency known as CGU said in a statement yesterday. Petrobras won’t invite SBM to participate in tenders until Brazil investigations end, it said in an e-mailed response today.
The probe “could result, in the end, in the inability to have new contracts with Petrobras,” the CGU said. “Notification so SBM can present its defense will happen in the next few days.”
Petrobras has come under increased scrutiny this year following graft allegations. Apart from the SBM probe, Brazilian federal police, Congress and the country’s audit court are doing separate investigations into Petrobras’s involvement in a multibillion-dollar money-laundering and bribery case. It has put President Dilma Rousseff, who was Petrobras chairwoman from 2003 to 2010, on the defensive as she starts her second term.
The former head of Petrobras’s refining unit, Paulo Roberto Costa, said in videotaped testimony he took bribes from contractors who formed a cartel to win contracts from the oil producer. He is currently under house arrest in a plea bargain deal with prosecutors.