Argentina to partner with Brazil to use Car Wash bargain statements
Information and evidence gathered as part of plea bargain statements and leniency deals forged in Brazil under Operation Car Wash will be accepted by court authorities in Argentina after a deal.
The talks on the use of material in Argentine courts were concluded last Friday (Jul. 13) between Brazil’s Office of the Prosecutor-General (PGR) and Argentina’s Prosecution Office. The deal is yet to be signed.
According to official information, the cooperation agreement was conceived by the Secretariat for International Cooperation (SCI), linked to the Federal Prosecution Service (MPF). Over the course of the last six months, the secretariat was able to reach a consensus with Argentina, which was hesitant in granting immunity to those making plea bargain statements in exchange for information.
Significant advance
“This is a significant advance in international legal cooperation between the two countries and yet another major stride in the fight against corruption,” said SCI head Prosecutor Cristina Romanó.
Up to mid-April, Argentine authorities had been investigating at least a hundred businesses for bribery. Developments included the arrest of a former minister under Cristina Kirchner, Julio de Vido, accused of pocketing $35 million in exchange for illicitly favoring Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht in a gas pipe project.
In June last year, Rodrigo Janot, Brazil’s prosecutor-general at the time, gathered a joint team in cooperation with Argentina to scrutinize crimes in connection with Operation Car Wash, in a bid to take advantage of the experience of both countries in uncovering wrongdoing that could serve as basis for provisional remedies and the freezing of assets.
The number of ongoing probes in Argentina has not been disclosed, but Brazilian authorities noted that the information and evidence shared by Brazil will enable charges to be filed against former Odebrecht employees involved in wrongdoing.
Similar deals have been made between the Brazilian government and Switzerland, Norway, and the Netherlands.
The only nation that refrained from recognizing the information to be shared by Brazil under said terms was Portugal, Brazilian prosecutors reported.
