Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça on Monday authorized 11 major engineering firms to review their leniency agreements under the now-defunct Operation Car Wash, a years-long anti-corruption task force that unveiled scandals tarnishing every major political party in the country.
Collectively, the leniency agreements amount to at least BRL 17 billion (USD 3.4 billion) in compensation after the executives confessed to colluding to siphon public money from contracts with Petrobras, Brazil’s massive state-controlled oil and gas company. Around BRL 3.2 billion was paid by September last year.
Companies and public bodies such as the Federal Prosecution Office were granted 60 days to reach new agreements.
The list of companies includes petrochemical giant Braskem, construction giants Metha (formerly known as OAS) and Novonor (formerly known as Odebrecht), Samsung Heavy Industries, and J&F Investimentos.
Supreme Court Justice Dias Toffoli had already suspended the payments by Novonor and J&F in separate decisions. The Prosecutor-General appealed in both cases.
Justice Mendonça’s decision is a reaction to a lawsuit filed by three left-wing parties close to the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration, who argued that the Car Wash leniency agreements were signed before a new regulation came into force in August 2020, when the Federal Comptroller General’s Office, the Solicitor General’s Office, the Federal Accounts Court, and the Justice Ministry signed a technical cooperation deal.
Comptroller General Vinícius de Carvalho told the Supreme Court that his ministry is “open” to hearing the companies’ requests for renegotiation.
Justice André Mendonça, a former Presbyterian pastor, was nominated to the court by former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2021.
The Lula administration and multiple justices (mostly appointed by the president) have been working to whitewash history — chipping away at the entire Car Wash legacy and reducing it to a political hit job.
The government, meanwhile, tries to resume unfinished infrastructure projects that had left behind an extensive trail of corruption scandals — several of which were investigated by Car Wash itself.
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