Petrobras to pay $4 billion to end US lawsuits over graft

(Jan 4): Brazil’s state-run energy explorer Petrobras agreed to pay US$2.95 billion ($3.92 billion) to compensate U.S. investors who lost money when a massive corruption scandal eroded the oil giant’s market value.

The settlement will end a three-year legal battle with holders of Petrobras’s American depositary receipts and bonds who filed lawsuits claiming large losses after Brazilian prosecutors exposed a wide-ranging money-laundering and kickback scheme involving the company in 2014.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known, settled the dispute sooner and at a lower cost than observers anticipated, said Bruno Montanari, a Sao Paulo-based analyst at Morgan Stanley. The agreement also removes some of the uncertainty about liabilities and will allow the company to better plan how it uses future cash flow, he said in a report on Wednesday.

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