Brazil’s national oil company Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) has restarted trading with major commodity traders Vitol, Trafigura, and Glencore after lifting the trading bans which was imposed following the 2018 bribery probe.
Petrobras said to Reuters that the company has adopted and perfected a series of specific measures meant to bring more security to the commercial relationship, standardized and improved the monitoring of talks from calls to messages, instituted “Know your client” procedures, and carried out integrity checks of its traders, among other measures.
According to one source familiar with the issue, the suspension was lifted roughly three months ago.
Previously in December 2018, Brazilian prosecutors announced the investigation related to the three major energy trading companies, along with some smaller ones, for paying at least USD31 million in bribes to Petrobras employees in exchange for sweetheart oil deals.
Following the Brazilian prosecutors’ announcement on the investigation, the US Justice Department opened its own probe. Last year in November, at Brazil’s request, Swiss authorities searched the trading firms’ offices in Geneva.
Allegedly, the top executives at the three firms were fully aware of the alleged bribery scheme.
Vitol, Trafigura, and Glencore have all denied the bribery allegations.
