Lima, (Reuters) – Peruvian construction conglomerate Aenza has signed a settlement with judicial authorities admitting that the company’s previous management and six former executives committed acts of corruption, the Andean country’s prosecutor’s office said on Friday.
Under the agreement, Aenza undertook to pay the Peruvian state about 480 million soles ($128 million) in reparations, said a joint statement from the special anti-corruption team of the public prosecutor and the attorney general’s offices that co-signed the agreement.
Aenza acknowledged that Graña y Montero, as it was previously known, and its subsidiaries GyM and CONCAR, as well as six former executives, were complicit in graft related to 16 infrastructure projects to build roads, highways and metro lines in Peru.
Graña y Montero partnered on infrastructure projects in Peru with scandal-plagued Brazilian builder Odebrecht SA, which in 2016 acknowledged it had paid millions of dollars in bribes to officials in a dozen countries to secure public works contracts dating back over a decade.
The settlement was delayed by the pandemic and disagreements between Aenza and the attorney general’s office, potentially shelving a planned deal for Aenza to sell control of the company to Brazilian private equity fund IG4 Investimentos, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters in February.
IG4 Investimentos, which agreed in November 2019 to buy up to 25% of Aenza from its founding families and former executives, had warned to withdraw its offer if the agreement with Peruvian prosecutors was not finalized by mid-April.