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Voa (File photo) / The investigation concludesd that Embraer paid US$800,000 to 'Agent C-, who felt insulted by being offered US$50,000.
The United States has the names of the two people in Mozambique who received bribes connected with the sale of two aircraft from the Brazilian company Embraer to Mozambique Airlines (LAM) in 2008
The details are found in an agreement submitted to a court in Florida where Embraer has been fined over US$107 million for bribery cases involving the sale of planes to the Dominican Republic, India, Saudi Arabia and Mozambique.
The document, which VOA had access to, mentions two individuals in Mozambique as having been involved in the process. One is labelled “an official entity whose identity is known to the United States … with a high-level position with decision-making powers in the government of Mozambique”.
“The Mozambique organisation had influence on decisions taken by Mozambique Airlines,” says the document, which then adds, without giving further details: “The Mozambique organisation was a foreign entity.”
The other individual is identified only as ‘Agent C’, whose identity is also known to the US authorities but is not mentioned in the document, and whose task was to “channel bribes to Mozambican entities to obtain or retain business in Mozambique”.
The documents details the negotiations between Embraer and Mozambique for the purchase of two aircraft with a value of $32 million each.
In August 2008, according to the document, ‘Agent C’ reported to the Brazilian company that “we would like to have a ‘gesture”‘, having an Embraer executive in an e-mail proposed a payment of between US$50,000 to US$80,000 dollars.
A Embraer director advised ‘Agent C’ to form a company to which “consultancy payments” could be made. However, subsequent e-mails indicate that ‘Agent C’ expected a “much higher” payment.
In August 2008, the “Mozambique entity” phoned a Embraer director who informed other executives that the entity “had received very bad reviews from some individuals on the commission proposal made to ‘Agent C'”.
The Mozambique entity “indicated that some individuals felt that the proposal was an insult and it would be less insulting not to give anything, but that this was not an acceptable solution”. This mysterious “Mozambique entity” then suggested a million dollars, but said US$800,000 could be acceptable.
“When the Embraer executive said that the company had no budget to pay consulting fees of this magnitude,” reads the document, the Mozambique entity “suggested that this should be taken from the profit margin and also asked if Embraer could not increase the price of the aircraft”.
The following year, after the purchase agreement was signed, Embraer initialled an agreement with a company ‘Agent C’ had formed in Sao Tome and Principe.
At the end of that month, US$400,000 was paid to a bank account in a bank in Sao Tome and Principe to be credited to a bank account in Portugal, and in early October the other US$400,000 was paid to the bank account of ‘Agent C’ in Portugal.
On Wednesday, November 2, the Attorney General of the Republic of Mozambique announced the opening of investigations into this process.
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