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At least, four of the world’s largest oil trading firm participated in a corruption scheme to secure oil deals from Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, last week. As the report mentioned, the federal prosecutors accused Vitol, Glencore, Mercuria and Trafigura, alongside, a few small firms had paid over $31 million in bribes over a period of six years to the Petrobras officials to secure oil deals at an advantageous price.
According to the report released yesterday, December 13th, the investigation is ongoing and the firms, who had paid bribes, have not yet charged. The investigators have been quoted saying that, they have just unveiled the “tip of the iceberg”, and there might have been much bigger scandals awaiting to be discovered.
Among the giant oil fishes accused of paying bribery, Mercuria completely declined the allegation, while Vitol and Glencore said that they would be cooperating with the investigators and officials. Last week, the Trafigura commented that they were reviewing the accusations.
Till now, arrest warrants are issued for eleven suspects, while eight of them are already in custody. However, none of them are employees of Glencore, Vitol, Trafigura or Mercuria. In fact, these four firms have been handing 10 percent of world’s daily oil consumptions and their total revenue would sum up near $630 billion.
If the accusations have been found guilty, these firms might face a hefty amount as fine to continue their operation with Brazilian state-owned Petrobras.
