Sliding back

IN 1969 A Bahian construction firm called Odebrecht began work on a brutalist building in Rio de Janeiro, which was to be the headquarters of Petrobras. It was an exciting moment: Petrobras had found oil off the coast and Odebrecht would become Brazil’s biggest contractor. But 45 years later came Lava Jato, when scores of businessmen were jailed, including Odebrecht’s boss.

Brazilian corruption has roots in a promiscuous relationship between the state and private firms. The dictatorship was Odebrecht’s chief customer. Norberto Odebrecht, its founder, saw corruption as a cost of doing business. He wrote in a bible for staff that the client is not “the state” or “the government”, but an individual to satisfy by any means necessary. Odebrecht’s “Department of Structured Operations”, better known as the bribes office, kept a list of code names for over 400 politicians and officials.

Many companies had similar practices. Odebrecht “played the game the best,” says Malu Gaspar, author of a book about the firm. The cost rose with the return of democracy, which brought a plethora of smaller parties, raising spending on political campaigns. Firms put up the cash, in under-the-table campaign donations. Odebrecht’s employees saw these as political contributions. “We knew that what we were doing wasn’t right but the feeling was that...