Rolls-Royce has been accused of involvement in a multibillion-dollar bribery and kickback scheme at Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer, as more foreign companies are dragged into the corruption scandal.
The British engineering company, which makes gas turbines for Petrobras oil platforms, allegedly paid bribes via an agent in exchange for a $100m contract as part of a scheme in operation during much of the past decade, according to testimony from a former Petrobras executive. It is the one of the biggest international groups so far to be implicated in the Petrobras scandal.
Pedro Barusco, a Petrobras veteran, told police that he personally received at least $200,000 from Rolls-Royce — only part of the bribes he alleged were paid to a ring of politicians and other executives at the oil company. The admission was buried in more than 600 pages of