The end of the Odebrecht era

On Monday, June 17, 2019, the 48,000 employees working at the Odebrecht group received a memo in their inboxes. It said the parent company was filing for court-supervised reorganization, one step before bankruptcy. The document also explained the size of the group’s debts, roughly BRL 98 billion—which makes this the biggest administration case in Brazilian history. The text, signed by CEO Luciano Guidolin, tries to keep spirits high, saying the companies will continue to “perform their duties normally.”

But nothing is normal about Odebrecht anymore.

One of Brazil’s most emblematic companies, Odebrecht S.A. was founded in Bahia by the late Norberto Odebrecht in 1944, after

The Odebrecht empire was only possible because of its proximity with power. The strategy of cozying up to governments—no matter the ideology—was there from the very beginning and reached its peak during the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration, when the third-generation family member Marcelo Odebrecht was at the helm. The company was omnipresent in major projects across the country—and even in Latin America.

We now know that the company managed to remain in the good graces of parties—from both the right and left—thanks to an institutionalized policy of bribes.

Once Latin America’s biggest construction firm, Odebrecht has now become synonymous with corruption. Since being dragged through the mud by Operation Car Wash—which unveiled the dishonest relationship the group nurtured with Brazil’s political parties...