Jose Carlos Grubisich, Foreign Bribery, New York 2024

CEO of Braskem Pleads Guilty to Foreign Bribery and Securities Law Violations

A Brazilian national who previously served as the chief executive officer of Braskem S.A., a publicly traded Brazilian petrochemical company, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from Braskem into a secret slush fund and to pay bribes to government officials, political parties, and others in Brazil to obtain and retain business.

According to court documents, between approximately 2002 and 2014, Jose Carlos Grubisich, 64, a citizen of Brazil, who served as the CEO and a member of the board of directors of Braskem as well as in various capacities for Braskem’s parent company, Odebrecht S.A. (Odebrecht), engaged in a scheme to bribe Brazilian government officials in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

As part of the scheme, Grubisich and his co-conspirators diverted approximately $250 million from Braskem into a secret slush fund, which Grubisich and others had generated through fraudulent contracts and offshore shell companies secretly controlled by Braskem.

Grubisich admitted that while CEO of Braskem, he agreed to pay bribes to Brazilian government officials to ensure Braskem’s retention of a contract for a significant petrochemical project from Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), Brazil’s state-owned and state-controlled oil company.

Grubisich also admitted that, as Braskem’s CEO, he falsified Braskem’s books and records by falsely recording the payments to Braskem’s offshore shell companies as payments for legitimate services. He also signed false Sarbanes-Oxley certifications submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that, among other things, attested that Braskem’s annual reports fairly and accurately represented Braskem’s financial condition, and that Grubisich, as Braskem’s principal officer, had disclosed all fraudulent conduct by Braskem’s management and other employees with control over Braskem’s financial reporting.

Grubisich pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and one count of conspiracy to violate the books and records provision of the FCPA and to fail to accurately certify Braskem’s financial reports. He has also agreed to pay approximately $2.2 million in forfeiture. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 5, 2024, and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

The FBI’s International Corruption squad in New York is investigating the case.

As CEO of a publicly traded company, Grubisich and other senior executives at Braskem engaged in a large-scale, sophisticated international bribery and fraud scheme and then lied to U.S. shareholders and authorities to conceal their criminal conduct.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-chief-executive-officer-publicly-traded-petrochemical-company-pleads-guilty-foreign