Odebrecht lags in payment of $220 million fine

AN INITIAL analysis concluded that the Odebrecht company has breached the penalty agreement that  was imposed on it said Attorney General Eduardo  Ulloa on Tuesday January 5

According to Ulloa the company “has not paid what was due” for the years 2019 and 2020 and he announced that the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office will be requesting a hearing to demand compliance with the agreement before the courts.

At the end of December, the  Foundation for the Development of Citizen Freedom (the Panamanian chapter of Transparency International) asked to establish a “citizen oversight” regarding the agreement reached three years ago between the Attorney General’s Office and the Odebrecht company, since – in in its  opinion – “it has not been the object of sustained accountability by the Public Ministry.”

The Foundation’s executive director, Olga de Obaldia, sent a 10-page note to the attorney Ulloa, requesting a response to a 17-question questionnaire on the scope and current status of the agreement reached with  André Rabello, former Odebrecht boss in Panama, validated on November 9, 2017, and the fine of $220 million agreed with the construction company, to be paid within a period of 12 years.

In a management report, Ulloa also said that, despite the fact that they had promised that the fiscal hearings of the Odebrecht and New Business case were issued last December, the number of infections of the new coronavirus within those offices (the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Office of the Prosecutor against Organized Crime) “reduced” its capacity-

A