Saudi Aramco confirmed today, as a follow-up to recently published reports by the media about a corruption case involving Embraer S.A., a Brazilian company, that its internal auditing activities that took place a few years ago revealed irregularities of the transaction that occurred between Brazilian Embraer S.A. and Saudi Aramco.
With significant and extensive assistance from the Saudi Ministry of Interior authorities, Saudi Aramco’s internal investigations established that a former Saudi Aramco employee was involved in receiving a bribe in return for facilitating the purchase of three aircrafts from Embraer. These findings led the company to apply maximum disciplinary actions against its former employee per its policies. The matter was further referred by the company to the relevant national authorities and concurrently Saudi Aramco suspended all business dealings with Embraer since that time.
The case dates back to 2012 when Saudi Aramco conducted an internal audit process of a transaction which led to identifying certain violations. This prompted Saudi Aramco to proactively initiate an internal investigation with the cooperation of concerned authorities in Saudi Arabia. The investigation confirmed the involvement of the former employee in these violations. Consequently, Saudi Aramco took appropriate measures against the involved former employee and referred the case to competent government authorities and cooperated in revealing all entities involved in this case.
Saudi Aramco also cooperated with international agencies which were conducting similar investigations into Embraer’s transactions. This cooperation also contributed to revealing the circumstances of the case and its international network. Although Saudi Aramco has ceased all future dealings with Embraer and excluded them from any future business, the company is taking appropriate legal measures against Embraer over the aforementioned violations upon the completion of the ongoing investigations by all other agencies.