Braving Brazil - Operating in the Latin America's Largest Economy in Uncertain Times

About this episode

The episode discusses the complexities and risks of doing business in Brazil amidst its political corruption and recent elections.

Brazil is a wild and wondrous country. The people are passionate, the celebrations spectacular and the history is rich. There’s a reason Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy. But investing and doing business in Brazil is fraught with rapidly changing, multi-faceted risks. Before 2014, there had been zero prosecutions under the country’s anti-bribery and corruption laws. Then the Lava Jato / Operation Car Wash investigation exploded on the scene and 280 people were convicted of having violated the Brazil Clean Companies Act. Amongst the people charged and 3 convicted in Lava Jato were former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva along with the presidents of Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay and Peru and senior executives of Brazil’s two largest state-owned companies, Petrobras and Odebrecht. It appeared that Brazil was well on its way to corruption reform. But corruption is insidious and political winds shift. Indeed, some of the recent developments in Brazil are nothing short of surreal. After several unsuccessful efforts to be allowed to run again for president despite his criminal conviction, Lula withdrew his candidacy and Jair Bolsonaro was elected president. Then in 2022, Lula…

People in this episode

Host: Scott Moritz

Topics covered

• Brazil
• corruption
• business risks
• politics
• Lula
• Bolsonaro

Keywords

• Brazil
• corruption
• Lula
• Bolsonaro
• business risks
• Operation Car Wash
• politics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Petrobras, Odebrecht

Places: Brazil

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