Vinicius Cardoso Reis, Guilherme France

Operation Car Wash and the Fight Against Corruption in Brazil

9 pages · 2.67 EUR
(04. Februar 2021)

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From the introduction:

On March 17, 2014, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Police launched what came to be Brazil’s largest and most influential investigation on corruption: Operation Car Wash. It started as an investigation into money laundering via gas stations and car washes in the city of Curitiba, capital of the state of Paraná. By tracking illegal financial operations of clandestine money dealers, known in Brazil as ‘doleiros’, the taskforce uncovered a complex web of bribery, embezzlement, bid rigging and money laundering (…)

Operation Car Wash represents a major step in Brazil’s ability to tackle corruption by enforcing its legislation. In a certain manner, the atmosphere created by investigations prompted some legislative change, as seen in the approval of the SOEs Act, in 2016, and the recent anti-crime package, passed in 2019. Those efforts have been insufficient, and many gaps and loopholes remain. For that reason, in 2018, Transparency International Brazil led the development of a comprehensive package containing 70 legislative proposals, the ‘New Measures Against Corruption’, which have become an important reference in the country’s anticorruption debate.

However, the operation has had some impact at the corporate level. For state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private companies, Operation Car Wash stirred the debate on fair and free competition and on the harm that political interference can produce.