For bribery: million fine for world's largest meat company JBS

The owners of "J&F Investimentos", Joesley and Wesley Batista, were arrested

19-Oct-2020 - Brazil

The holding company "J&F Investimentos", to which the world's largest meat company JBS belongs, has been found guilty in a US court of having paid more than 150 million dollars in bribes to senior Brazilian government officials over ten years. As part of the settlement agreement with the US Department of Justice, "J&F Investimentos" has to pay more than 250 million dollars in fines to Brazilian and US authorities, according to a letter from JBS to its shareholders, available to the German Press Agency, on Wednesday.

The US Department of Justice in Washington accused the company of a long-term conspiracy to bribe corrupt officials in Brazil. According to the ministry, executives used banks, companies and real estate in the USA to pay government representatives millions of dollars in bribes. With its anti-corruption law "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act", the USA is pursuing accusations of bribery beyond its own national borders.

According to the Brazilian policy portal "O Antagonista", the company's lawyer, Lucio Martins Batista, said that the bribery system "J&F Investimentos" had secured access to funds from the Brazilian development bank BNDES to buy US companies such as the food company "Pilgrim's Pride" and the meat company "Swift&Company". JBS has been involved in a number of scandals in Brazil, including a rotten meat scandal in 2017, in which the EU imposed a partial ban on Brazilian imports, and a corruption scandal in which then president Michel Temer was indicted.

The owners of "J&F Investimentos", Joesley and Wesley Batista, were arrested. Joesley Batista had also given the judiciary recordings of a conversation with President Temer. These led to the suspicion that an accomplice to bribery deals, ex-President of the Parliament Eduardo Cunha, was being held to pay for revelations. Temer is said to have been collecting bribes for his party PMDB from Joesley Batista for years. "J&F Investimentos claims to employ more than 250,000 people and has a presence in 190 countries.

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1168276/for-bribery-million-fine-for-world-s-largest-meat-company-jbs.html