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Carlos Núñez-Vivas: ‘The US Knows who received the bribes and could accuse them.’
Posted On 01 Mar 2017
Carlos Núñez-Vivas, the lawyer who follows the Odebrecht case in the United States, argues that although that country has the names of the officials who received bribes from the Brazilian construction company, they will only be made public when the process reaches its reserve phase.
In an interview with Daily El Universo, Nuñez-Vivas said that the US government knows the identity of those foreign officials, “but could keep it secret to indict them.” And they could accuse him of money laundering and not for bribery. “For now, that identity is going to be kept secret for investigations. Odebrecht’s agreement with the US Attorney’s Office (Plea Agreement) commits the company to cooperate with proceedings before the Grand Jury.”
He explained that for a prosecutor of a country to access that information, he should do it through a treaty of cooperation. The Plea Agreement allows the US to share information with other governments. “Now, even with these treaties, the US could refuse to give that information. When an investigation is carried out by the Grand Jury, that information can not be disclosed by anyone. Only when they consider it can be revealed, for example, in case the person has already been arrested. But before that, the US is not going to give the information; it is not obliged to do it.”
